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

Today more about how the sun sees us and how bees might see us in UV. Well, in other words: how does human skin look like in reflected ultraviolet (UV) light compared to normal human vision. After shaving every morning, I usually apply some day cream to protect my skin. Shots were done inside using a modified for UV Xenon flash. A UV capable lens was used for this. All shots were done at about f5.6.

[click on image to see a larger one]

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

So, the sunblocker in my daycream obviously has protective effects, clearly visible by the darkened skin. This shows that the used cream absorbs dangerous UV-B and also UV-A radiation (the latter being important to protect against the so called "white" skin cancer). Further its gets visible, that the reflected UV image clearly shows otherwise invisible freckles, about which some dermatologists say that it is skin damage getting visible, caused by the accumulated UV radiation exposure over the years. So whenever you're out in the sun, protect your skin!

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

I have written about that HERE before.

There is also 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