It is probably clear to you by now, my gentle (and oh, so loyal) readers, that I’m making up for lost time today. I have been sitting on piles of article ideas and photography news items to share with you all but unfortunately at times life can get the better of you, as it has me over the past couple of months.

Please rest assured that I have no forgotten you all, nor have I given up on this “blogging” endeavor of mine. Regrettably, many of the things that have occurred in the photography world during my absence are no longer relevant or current, but fear not, for there is much, much more to share.

Now, to the point.

Clearly this is a photography website and I try to limit my ramblings and reflections to the world of photography, but occasionally something comes around that is only tangentially related to photography, such as a video or a piece of news, and it behooves me to let you decide whether you think it’s interesting or not.

In this case, we have 560,000 photos of a firecracker exploding. I apologize for the perhaps somewhat misleading title; these are not 560,000 individual photographs, but rather the result of recording 56 seconds of a firecracker exploding on a high-speed camera at 10,000 frames per second. I ask you, is there anything in the world that doesn’t look amazing at 10,000 frames per second? Don’t answer that.

One of the most compelling capabilities of photography, which I have featured prominently in my own artist’s statement, is that of enabling us to see something we cannot perceive with our own bare eyes. What is hidden from us may be the unique perspective of another individual in a philosophical or social sense, or something that is literally invisible to the naked eye. In my humble opinion it is photography’s highest calling to reveal it. In this case it is a “moving picture,” a video if you will, but nevertheless photography’s calling is answered triumphantly.

Without further ado, a firecracker exploding at 10,000 frames per second: