In our last Kick-About, Almond Blossom drew our attention to fragility, colour, and moments of quiet optimism. This week, the focus shifts from what we can plainly see to what is said to surround it. Our prompt is Kirlian Aura—an invitation to think about energy, edges, and the glow that seems to hover around living things. As always, the works that follow were made in a short time—and for all previous editions of The Kick-About, go here.
Francesca Maxwell
“Fascinating subject this Kirlian Aura. I would have like to try different techniques and subjects but only got time to try this group of mono prints with ink and alcohol. I am sure the inspiration will stay with me for a long time and crop up in my artwork again.”
Kerfe Roig
“I was immediately drawn to the hands. I did some handprints, painted on top of them, and fooled around with them in photoshop. A couple of them resemble the aura photos, but mostly I just had fun.”
James Randall
“This is just a bit of visual fiddling about until I felt comfortable with it. No real meaning just mucking about with the theme and composition I guess.”
Gary Thorne
“Not knowing the local mushrooms is embarrassing, but if this is a Blushing Bracket (Daedaleopsis confragosa), I’ve learned something. It certainly grabs your eye within Kent woodland, and its aura-like edging makes for a relevant KA entry. Note: it’s inedible!”
Charly Skilling
“Looking through images of kirlian photography, I got to wondering about which techniques of paint application could create a similar effect. So I played with washes and pant blots, moved on to broad, loose brushstrokes, and then used some bubble wrap to develop texture. A fine brush added a few dots of orange. Later, a digital elf scanned the image into the computer and boosted the contrast.”
Tom Beg
“I didn’t do too much research into Kirlian photography, I just saw cool glowing stuff and tried to make some cool glowing stuff—resulting in these electrified loop-like things.”
Phil Gomm
“Admittedly, this response to the idea of ‘Kirlian auras’ is a bit of mish-mash; hovering about in the background is some half-remembered artwork or illustration from one of those big coffee-table books of unexplained phenomena popular back in the 1980s, and by association, something about ‘alien abduction’ or the associated idea of ‘men in black’. Throw in some inter-dimensional portals, event horizons, reapings and Bermuda triangles and you get somewhere close to the provenance of these images.
They were created simply enough; scattering the surface of a scanner with little plastic people and dropping in different backgrounds for texture (including, but not restricted to, and old Pyrex roasting dish!). I didn’t clean up the scans, but brought them straight into Premiere Pro (video editing software), as there are filters in that software for splitting RGB layers etc). In short, after some straight-ahead mucking about, I made a bunch of iterations, a selection of which I’ve included here.“
philgomm.com / behance.net/Phil_Gomm
Graeme Daly
“Whenever there’s a chance to play around with lights and long exposure, I’m always game, and it felt fitting for Kirlian Aura. I used a cheap fibre-optic lamp for an idea I’d had for a photo shoot a long time ago — something I’d tested but never really brought to fruition. This time around, I’m glad I got it to a point I’m pleased with, because it was actually quite difficult to do… at least at first. Long exposure tracks every hint of movement, so many of the photos came out blurry. I think leg day at the gym is paying off, because I was in a squat position for a lot of them, trying my hardest not to move myself while also moving the light for between eight and fifteen seconds at a time. Some of that blurriness worked in my favour; a lot didn’t.
It wasn’t until I started playing around with my camera settings that I came across second-curtain flash, where instead of firing at the start of the shot, the flash fires at the end of a long exposure just before the shutter closes, freezing the final frame. This meant I got the lovely light bleeds but also managed to keep myself in focus. I used coloured cellophane sweet wrappers from a box of Quality Street — saved for moments like this — to cover the flash so it fired blue, purple, or red (and sometimes a mix), as I didn’t like the normal white flash, which drowned out much of the colour. I also used a few other cheap coloured lights, including a galaxy projection and a sunset lamp, to experiment further.
All in all, I got some funky photos, ticked something off my mammoth list of creative projects, and learned a new photography technique along the way.”
@graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.ie
Next time, our prompt turns skyward to an Art Deco landmark — all steel, symmetry, and ambition…
Red's Kingdom 
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