P356 Jun07: Polarised plastic

Today I came across a fantastic little tutorial that reminded me of a cool optics phenomenon that I learned about in physics in high school. Based in the principle of polarised light, the following magnificently coloured images are of common transparent plastic objects when viewed through a polarising filter and backlit with a polarised light source.

If you have an LCD monitor, a polarising filter (or possibly even polarising sunglasses) and a camera, you can achieve this effect yourself. Make sure you check out the tutorial linked above!

The closest clear plastic when I first set this shoot up was the polarising filter case, and as you can see, it was a startling example of the effect!

Here you can see a photo of my glasses, which are rimless, and thus the lens is drilled. The distortions in the plastic caused by stresses made during the drilling process show up clearly and dramatically.

This is an object that almost everyone would have on hand, which also shows lovely subtle colour variations. In a spindle of blank CDs, the bottom one is usually a clear one which protects the last CD. Because it's clear, it's well suited to this kind of image. The radial line you can see at about 11 oclock looks to me like it might be the point at which the molten plastic met opposite the injection point in the mold.

I look forward to experimenting with the artistic possibilities of this technique!