How the sun sees you and how the bee sees you - human skin and sun blocker effect as seen through reflected UV photography

Today about how the sun sees us and how bees might see us. Well, in other words: how does human skin look like in reflected ultraviolet (UV) light and in simulated bee vision (BV) all compared to normal human vision. Sun blocking cream has been applied to the right side of the face to show which impact that has. All shots were done outside using sunlight. A UV capable 35mm lens was used for this. All shots were done at about f5.6.

[click on image to see a larger one]

Color human vision VIS image (left), false color UV image (right)

BW human vision VIS image (left), bw UV image (right)

Aside from the striking impact that SPF50 sunblocker has, it gets quite obvious, that the reflected UV image clearly also shows the UV pattern a Rudbeckia fulgida flower has. Human skin in UV shows otherwise invisible freckles, about which some dermatologists say that is skin damage getting visible, caused by UV radiation. Further to that, the otherwise invisible front tooth repair also gets nicely visible.

P.S.: my polo shirt massively reflects UV around 365nm - that is for the UV nerds only :LOL:

So what would a bee see of that I got asked. Well, let's see...

Color human vision VIS image (left), false color UV image (middle), simulated bee vision BV (right)

So the bee vision (BV) image also shows the effect of the applied sun blocking cream, as well as the flower UV patterns. It is not as striking as the bw image, but what do we know, how a bee really sees us...

So to summarize, I would say that reflected UV photography is a very suitable tool to make all that so nicely visible!

There is a corresponding video about that topic HERE


Stay tuned, more will follow on that fascinating subject...

More info on this very interesting field may be found on my site http://www.pbase.com/kds315/uv_photos