Lippmann Photography

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PeacockZsm.jpg

Peacock Feather made Using the Lippmann Process at the Optical Structure Laboratory at the Rowland Institute at Harvard.

Lippmann photography is a way of making a color photograph that relies on Bragg reflection planes in the emulsion to make the colors. It is similar to using the colors of soap bubbles to make an image. Gabriel Jonas Lippmann won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1908 for the creation of the first color photographic process.

A conceptual method would be to use a color holography film like Slavich PFG-03 and index match a first surface mirror to the emulsion side. (Lippmann used mercury for the mirror.) Expose the film with a pinhole camera. Remove the mirror. Develop the film to avoid shrinkage with something like JD-4. When illuminated by a diffuse source a color photograph is visible.

Lippmann is an excelent choice for making security documents as explained in this paper by Hanz Bjelkhagen on Lippmann Security.

Viewing a Lippmann photograph, a regular photograph and a hologram are quite different. Here is a page on Viewing Lippmann Photographs.

Papers on Lippmann Photography.

Links