Photographer Captures Stunning Rainbow In Hummingbirds’ Wings

Australian photographer Christian Spencer has spent 19 years living in Brazil’s Itatiaia National Park, and one of the things he has focused his camera on is the beautiful sight of sunlight passing through hummingbird wings. His project is titled Winged Prism.

Hummingbirds are the smallest of birds, and some species can zip around at over 34 mph (54 km/h) while flapping their wings at over 80 times per second.

While studying these hard-to-photograph birds, Spencer noticed that the wings would create a prism-like effect when sunlight passed through them, causing rainbow colors to appear. He then began working to snap photos of hummingbirds passing between his lens and the Sun in order to capture these rainbows on camera.

Hummingbirds flapping their wings 80 times per second also contributed to the difficulty of this task.

Spencer had to capture the exact moment the sun penetrated the hummingbirds’ wings in order to capture this beautiful prism.

The result of his work is stunning. The photos are fully organic, and no digital manipulation is used

You can find the full collection and more of Spencer’s work on his website and Instagram. You can also purchase the print for yourself.

This is not the first time Spencer captured this prism. In 2011 he filmed the award-winning ‘The Dance Of Time’ film.

But the hummingbirds are so beautiful he had to go back and film them again. Beautiful.