Photographer Captures Incredible Images of Hummingbird's Wings Turn Into Rainbows (8 Pics)
When professional artist and photographer Christian Spencer saw a black Jacobin hummingbird flitting near his verandah in Rio de Janeiro, he was stunned to see a magical rainbow shining through its wings. Check out a number of the images from the stunning series below.
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Australian photographer Christian Spencer has spent 19 years living in Brazil's Itatiaia National Park, and one of the things he has focused his camera on is the beautiful sight of sunlight passing through hummingbird wings. His project is titled Winged Prism.
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Right when we think we've seen just about everything, nature find another way to astonish us. Hummingbirds are the smallest of birds, and some species can zip around at over 34 mph (54 km/h) while flapping their wings at over 80 times per second.
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While studying these hard-to-photograph birds, Spencer noticed that the wings would create a prism-like effect when sunlight passed through them, causing rainbow colors to appear. He then began working to snap photos of hummingbirds passing between his lens and the Sun in order to capture these rainbows on camera. Image credits: VITRAL © Christian Spencer
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Christian Spencer is a talented photographer and was spending the day in Rio de Janeiro when he made a wonderful discovery. When a Jacobin hummingbird flew past the sun with its wings open, a stunning light prism effect appeared. Image credits: VITRAL © Christian Spencer
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At that very moment, it appeared as if the birds body was made of rainbows. "There is no special technique, just diffraction of light through the wings of this special hummingbird" Spencer recorded the birds beautiful 'rainbow' movements in 2011 for a film called The Dance of Time, that won 10 international awards.
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Years later, Spencer returned to complete more 'rainbow hummingbird' work, speaking to My Modern Met he says: "I decided to try and photograph the same phenomenon created by birds' wings with my camera." And this resulted in Winged Prism, a stunning series of images that reveal "a secret of nature that cannot be seen with our eyes."
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Many have asked if Winged Prism is edited, as it looks to magical to be true, but Spencer insists there was no digital manipulation. "There is no special technique, just diffraction of light through the wings of this special hummingbird." "Nobody ever could have ever dreamed that this was a reality," he says. "I receive emails every day from people across the world touched by these images."
