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Re: Kirlian photography

Tesla List wrote:
>
> Subscriber: dixie-at-icenet.fi Sun Jan 26 13:33:13 1997
> Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 13:01:34 +0000
> From: Tero Ranta <dixie-at-icenet.fi>
> To: tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com
> Subject: Kirlian photography
>
> All,
>
> I would like to make Kirlian photographs but what do I need to do
> them?
>
> Tero Ranta
>
> Vacuum Tube Tesla Coil Page:
> http://www.icenet.fi/~dixie/

Tero,
    I have done some Kirlian photography.  It is rather simple but also
rather dangerous.  Here's the general method.  You need a high voltage
and high frequency power source (ie Tesla Coil).  You need a large
(large depends on the size of what you want to photograph) metal plate.
Radio Shack sells a very good plate of insulating plastic sandwiched in
between two copper plates.  It measures about 4" x 6".  Take the metal
plate and ground it.  I recommend putting the plate in a gladlock
plastic sandwich bag.  Then put a piece of film on top of the plate so
that on side of the bag is in between the plate and the film.  Put
another layer of clear! plastic on top of the film.  Then put the object
to be photographed on top of that and connect it to the power source.
Metal objects work best.  I have gotten great results with my keys on a
keychain.  You will have to experiment with the exposure time, although
it seemed to me to be rather flexible (around 1-3 secs).
    Of course, you cannot bring out the film in the above process until
you are in a VERY dark room.  You will need to learn to operate by touch
only.  And you will want some sort of light proof container to put the
exposed film in.
    Here are some definite dangers that you must pay attention to. Doing
Kirlian photography in a dark room mixes some dangerous elements.  You
must operate high-voltage equipment in complete darkness.  Moreover,
most dark rooms have water in close proximity as well.  For my power
source I used a solid-state device that utilized a spark-plug
"transformer" from a car.  This provided less (but sufficient) voltage
and smaller amperage and did not have the dangers of an exposed Tesla
primary.  I used glow-in-the-dark paint on the on/off switch and on the
high-voltage lead to the object.

Good luck.

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