Have you ever thought about trying your hand at ultraviolet portraiture? As in: covering a model in ultraviolet paint—either professionally or in a more… splatter kind of way—lighting them with black lights, and then photographing the glowing results?
It’s not something a lot of photographers take the time to try, partly because it CAN (doesn’t have to) get pretty expensive and WILL get messy if you’re doing intense work, but the results are out of this world.
If you don’t believe us, check out some of the ultraviolet portraits captured by 500pxers Benjamin Von Wong, Pedro Pinho, Maxim Guselnikov, Andrey Zhukov, and more!
The cool thing about this idea is that you can take it as far (or as not far…) as you’d like. Want to experiment over the weekend? Great! Grab some UV paints from your local craft store, pick up some inexpensive black light tubes while you’re there, and set up a cool portrait shoot in your living room once it gets dark.
Just lay some tarps out so your floor doesn’t look like a crime scene under black light afterwards.
If, however, you’re a pro or a semi-pro photographer with your own studio and a little bit more money at hand, you can take it to the next level like Ben Von Wong did in this incredible collaboration with body painter Michael Rosner:
He’s using UV adapters for his very nice Broncolor studio lights, which allowed him to capture incredibly sharp, studio-quality images the likes of which are beyond us mere mortals… but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a ton of fun with UV paint and black lights this weekend!
So get out there and experiment, and then upload the results to 500px and drop a link in the comments. We’d love to see your results!