For this shot, the background colors have been backed off a bit. Letting the background color bleed in a bit is a good way to increase contrast near the edge of the color, but shooting without it allows for a black background, which looks nicer IMO.Additionally, the casing of the party popper has been fully stripped away, and some glow from the explosion can be seen in the middle of the image. A final not: if you look closely at my Leatherman, you can see a small shockwave reflection where the main bubble hits it. Photo produced with Theresa Mislick, Victoria Gunning, Wolfgang Yarlott.
On its own, a candle flame under Schlieren imaging is pretty neat. However, when you do the thing with canned air that canned air tells you not to do, it gets even neater! Photo produced with Theresa Mislick, Victoria Gunning, Wolfgang Yarlott.
Trailing vortices form on the edges of spinning fan blades. Images modeled after a series of shots by Harold Edgerton and J. Kim Vandiver.
A Schlieren image of the exploding inside of a party popper. The bright circle around the center of the image is the sound wave of the explosion. The central multicolored plume is the expanding cloud of hot explosion gasses. Photo produced with Theresa Mislick, Victoria Gunning, Wolfgang Yarlott.