Photographer Robert Buelteman uses thousands of volts of
electricity to create his photographs by zapping a little life
and energy into already beautiful plants. The process, called
Kirlian photography, was made famous in 1939 by Russian inventor
Semyon Davidovich Kirlian who discovered the process
accidentally through experimentation. To capture the glowing
light through each flower, Buelteman first carves at the plants
with surgical tools until they are thin and sheer. Next, he
places a sheet of transparency film below a metal sheet floating
in liquid silicone. He puts the plants on top of the film and
connects them, with clamps, to a source of voltage. Buelteman
then generates up to 80,000 volts through the plant to capture
the resulting glow on film. Buelteman works completely in the
dark, so after he shocks the plants, he paints with light across
the shape of the plant to add additional illumination and detail
to the image. These glowing plants are an impressive example of
photographic techniques that do