With this image our group combined two things we were interested in working with: ferrofluid and glow sticks. We were inspired by the team first assignment that mixed ferrofluid and watercolor. The result was the characteristic spikes of ferrofluid that appear when the liquid becomes magnetized, surrounded by glowing liquid. Several sequences of images that we made just happened to lend themselves nicely to a gif, so I made one. This sequence of images was made with Garrett, Brandon, Summer, and Zach.
We used a petri dish suspended on a few rolls of tape to hold. We filled the petri dish 1/3 full with ferrofluid and placed a magnet underneath the petri dish, in the space created by the rolls of tape. We proceeded to pour glow stick fluid (a mixture of Dibutyl phthalate, hydrogen peroxide, phthalic ester, and Phenyl oxalate ester) until the petri dish was basically full. We excited the ferrofluid with a plain magnet from McGuckin’s, which induced our flow. We kept turning the magnet over, as opposed to just spinning it around. We worked in a darkened room.
This was a particularly difficult shoot, especially in terms of focus, because we were working in the dark; it’s extremely difficult to focus things in the dark. The sequence of images used to make this gif were taken on a Nikon DSLR using manual focus – probably the reason it appears blurry. The camera was on a tripod about two and a half feet away from the flow, and was zoomed in. I edited nine sequential images into a gif using Photoshop; the first frame had a 0.2sec frame rate, the remaining eight frames had a 0.1sec frame rate.
I decided to make a gif because the point of ferrofluid is that it moves, and I wanted to showcase the motion of the flow. The result can be a bit…unsettling. The final product feels very alien to me, kind of creepy, kind of horror movie-ish, but the sense of motion is definitely there.
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love it as a GIF, looks like an organism coming alive.
Interesting GIF, the alternating images gives it a sense of liveliness
Great GIF. I love how you captured the different phases as the magnet changed depths.
Really cool image, the glow is very interesting. Overall very nice image.
Creepy. Good decision to go with the GIF. I might try this for future work.
Your choice of using a GIF is very interesting, it makes it seem like the ferrofluid is alive, almost like a beating heart.
Well, you took something that looks alien and organic, and now it’s moving. The colors are great, and the effect works really well as a GIF. Nice image(s), though I’m a little scared.
The GIF really explains some more about the fluid flow of the ferrofluid. The lighting from the liquid is also interesting.
It’s so alive. The petri dish moves around frame-to-frame which is a little distracting but the overall aesthetic of the images is breathtaking.
Very cool fluid physics, making a GIF really helps the physics. The colors and jagged edges add a nice effect.
Your gif file looks like a breathing lung of alien. Nice job!
ITS ALIVE! very creature of the deep
Absolutely fascinating, nice frame, and color is beautiful.
Cool Gif! These images are neat
Creepy. Looks like its breathing. I like it
This is really cool to watch and kind of creepy at the same time. The flow is really nice and the colors are wonderful. Really well done.
I really like how you have posted gif file. Really cool idea and love the image
This is super cool…it looks alive, like a cell or something. Nice colors and I like the glowing of the glow stick fluid.
Almost looks as it’s alive. Really cool, and creative that you made it as a GIF.
It looks… ALIVE
This looks really awesome as a GIF. Great job with color and framing of the image.
I love it as a GIF! absolutely odd and gorgeous. What a fun, beautiful idea!