“Vessels and Blooms” is a photo series of splashing liquids that resemble flowers in vases, lensed by Milwaukee-based photographer Jack Long. See website.

In a Photoshop world where few images are rendered in their original state, Long’s pure magic photos come to life without any Photoshop trickery. A disciplined and patient artist, Long spends months painstakingly planning and testing each work before capturing these fast-movig droplets of paint with a high-speed camera as they fall through the air. 

Water mixed with thickeners, pigments and dyes produces these magnificent, enchanting images. The paint is suspended in air for a split second as Long uses an electronic flash to get the image capture just right. ‘Reality’ appears as a range of leaves, stems, petals and pots made of paint. In fact, we’re looking at a wondrous visual illusion. Simply superb! ~ Anne