Ultraviolet Beauty

June 11, 2012 7:13 AM

Photographer Cara Phillips uses ultraviolet light to bring out the beautiful imperfections in people's skin. [via]
posted by quin (21 comments total)

You mean sun damage?
posted by leotrotsky at 7:15 AM on June 11, 2012 [6 favorites]

Neat effect. Some of them (mainly the non-whites) look almost metallic.
posted by rocket88 at 7:20 AM on June 11, 2012

Less imperfections I feel, more just a close up of what skin looks like in real life?

No human being's skin was ever 'perfect' in real life. That would be some very Uncanny Vally territory.

good post, but a better title would have perhaps had 'blemishes' in place of 'imperfections' in the title text.

Interesting photographs though.
posted by Faintdreams at 7:22 AM on June 11, 2012

I'd say it's more like the technique emphasizes darker pigmentation, rather than brings-out imperfections (unless you consider freckles and dark skin to be imperfections).
posted by Thorzdad at 7:24 AM on June 11, 2012

I don't see any imperfections.
posted by HumanComplex at 7:28 AM on June 11, 2012 [12 favorites]

Cool.

And much as it has added new information to fields like art conservation and archaeology, I also would think that — for good or ill — adding in or enhancing data from the non-visible spectrum has tremendous potential to enhance the accuracy of facial recognition.
posted by Glomar response at 7:31 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Dammit, HumanComplex beat me to it.

(also: eponysterical?)
posted by jquinby at 7:34 AM on June 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

First link is NSFW.
posted by quiet coyote at 7:45 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

What are the UV-dark spots we can see on all the light-skinned faces?
posted by kcds at 7:50 AM on June 11, 2012

> What are the UV-dark spots we can see on all the light-skinned faces?

Looks like freckles to me.

I could be off base, but these seem like they're just images taken in the UV - "using UV" seems like a funny way to describe it, which to me implies something more invoved. Not that these aren't great.
posted by Arturus at 8:06 AM on June 11, 2012

What are the UV-dark spots we can see on all the light-skinned faces?

Concentrated areas of pigmentation/melanin, surrounded by areas with little to no pigmentation.

Basically, you're seeing freckles that may or may not be apparent in visible light conditions.

ps: dear mom--still glad I eventually stopped listening to your constant harping on me about how unflattering pale skin is, and how I only look pretty and healthy with "some color," so stop wearing broad-spectrum high SPF-sunscreen, and go to the tanning salon/sunbathe more often.
posted by Uniformitarianism Now! at 8:14 AM on June 11, 2012

You can get a similar look without special equipment by doing a color -> black and white conversion emphasizing the blue channel. People's skin gets really high contrast in higher wavelengths; I guess it's no surprise that if you go bluer than blue to UV, the effect is even stronger. It ends up looking something like this guy's portraits, but he has good taste. If you really push it you can get some pretty garish results.
posted by Nelson at 8:15 AM on June 11, 2012 [3 favorites]

Wow, it really shows how even a little melanin blocks a TON of UV. The freckles/slightly dark spots on white skin look black, and hispanics/asians/south asians look nearly as dark as black people.
posted by delmoi at 8:29 AM on June 11, 2012 [2 favorites]

My dermatologist showed me one of these OF MY OWN FACE and good lord IT WAS SO HORRIFYING.
posted by iamkimiam at 9:00 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Everyone knows UV light has monsters in it, and if you see them they'll eat you, so thanks for that.
posted by Artw at 9:00 AM on June 11, 2012 [3 favorites]

Dear everyone who makes stuff like this,
I'm teach physics and this would be amazingly useful to me if you included a comparison with a non-UV photo.
Thanks,
Alby
posted by alby at 9:04 AM on June 11, 2012 [10 favorites]

Wow, it really shows how even a little melanin blocks a TON of UV. The freckles/slightly dark spots on white skin look black..

Melanin doesn't block UV--it absorbs it. That is why those areas are black in the photos.
It converts 99.0% of the UV radiation into heat, which radiates instead of causing indirect DNA damage.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:23 AM on June 11, 2012

99.9%
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:24 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Of course it makes sense that the UV monsters would be racist. Ftagn.
posted by Artw at 9:25 AM on June 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

First link is NSFW.

Thanks! I totally missed the boobs on the first pass-through.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:51 PM on June 11, 2012

I like that it makes human faces look like excellent animal faces. I am always jealous looking at the intricate details on animal faces when ours are usually so plain and flat.
posted by moneyjane at 8:22 PM on June 11, 2012