Alan Sailer

Alan Sailer's high speed photography is beautiful and badass.

(literally) shooting a rose frozen in liquid nitrogen

From the Daily Mail:

An expert at high-speed photography, Mr Sailer takes the pictures in a dark room positioned around 20cm from the target. The camera, which features a unique home-made flash, is set at a one-second delay.

Mr Sailer, who describes the process as 'beyond dangerous, says: 'The special item is the flash. It is a home-built unit based on the design of Harold Edgerton*. The flash is about .5 microsecond in duration and runs at 17,000 volts. It is beyond dangerous, it's deadly.

'The flash is triggered when the pellet from a rifle travelling at about 200 metres per seconds passes through a laser beam. Its the same principle as those beams that set off a chime when you walk into a store,' he continues.

'The camera is set at one second and an f-stop of 9-13 depending on the reflectivity of the subject. The flash stops the action. The one second gives me time to click the camera shutter with one hand while I pull the trigger on the rifle with the other.'

'I have a delay circuit that I can use to time the flash, so that it goes off when the pellet hits the target. The explosion is the shock of the pellet hitting the target.'

Radish

Frozen strawberry

Bacon

Plum

Christmas bulb