A Kirlian Camera is a camera which is used to take images of corona discharges from the edges of any object. This kind of photographic process is known as Kirlian photography. The resulting images are known as photograms which are obtained with the help of high voltages. This process was discovered in 1939 by Semyon Kirlian, purely by accident. He discovered that when a high voltage source is connected to the object placed on the photographic plate and then photographed, the resulting picture shows an image of a corona discharge around the object. This strong electric field that is created at the edges around the object is believed to create this effect.
The work done by Kirlian came to be called by different names in the scientific community, including corona discharge photography, electrophotography, or simply electrography. From the year that he discovered the process, Kirlian went on to rediscover the entire process of contact photography. This process involved placing the photographic film over a metal plate first and then placing the object to be photographed directly over the film. A high frequency and high voltage source was then connected to the plate at the time of the exposure which resulted in the unique features produced in the photogram.
Some people, including Kirlian, have claimed that the energy field found in pictures of the finger tips of humans, taken using a Kirlian camera, can be compared to the aura surrounding humans. Many people believe that all living beings, including plants, emit this aura. In fact, an experiment was once performed where a leaf was plucked and set on a Kirlian camera and several pictures of it were taken as the leaf withered away. The corresponding photograms also showed a decline in the aura’s strength surrounding the leaf. Researchers who supported this idea claimed that this is proof that an aura surrounds every living object. Critics, however, dismissed the idea saying that the loss of moisture in the leaf as it withered away caused its electrical conductivity to decline, which resulted in a diminishing effect of the so-called “aura” seen in the photograms.
The most accepted scientific explanation to the effects seen in the pictures is that the corona effect is produced by high voltages, as seen in a Tesla coil or in a Van de Graaff generator. This effect can be seen with the naked eye as a faint glow, in a totally darkened room. The same effect produced a kind of halo on photographic film giving rise to the aura seen around the objects photographed using the Kirlian camera.
Rick Valence is a camera repair specialist at C.R.I.S. in Chandler, Arizona. Along with being a camera and photography enthusiast, Rick enjoys camera repair blogging in his spare time and traveling around the world to find exotic regions and experiences to photograph.
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