Dancing with Invisible Light: portraits shot with Kinect's infrared structured light

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Shown here, images from Audrey Penven's photography series "Dancing with Invisible Light: A series of interactions with Kinect's infrared structured light." From her description of the project:


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With these images I was exploring the unique photographic possibilities presented by using a Microsoft Kinect as a light source. The Kinect – an inexpensive videogame peripheral – projects a pattern of infrared dots known as "structured light". Invisible to the eye, this pattern can be captured using an infrared camera.

The Kinect uses the deformation of this dot pattern to derive 3D information about its subjects (an ability which has already spawned an explosion of incredible digital art).

As a photographer I am most interested in the nature and quality of light: how light behaves in the physical world, and how it interacts with and affects the subjects that it illuminates. For this shoot my models and I were essentially working blind, with the results visible only after each image was captured. Together, we explored the unique physicality of structured light, finding our way in the darkness by touch and intuition. Dancing with invisible light.

View the full set here (prude alert: contains both portraits and nudes). To purchase a print, contact the photographer at audrey.penven@gmail.com: 11×14 for $60, 16 x 20 for $120.


Dig the crazy lens flares the Kinect light creates in the shot below!


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Related coolness at openkinect.org.

Credits:

Models: qtrnevermore, C. King, Mike Estee, Sloane Soleil, Helyx, Star St. Germain, Ian Baker, Annetta Black, Josh St. John.

Assistants: Aaron Muszalski, Ian Baker, Mike Estee

An earlier photo set is also online here.

(Thanks, sfslim!)