When Semyon Kirlian revealed his discovery of electrical photography in 1939, the images produced by his equipment seemed almost magical. Coins appeared surrounded by glowing halos. Leaves showed delicate branching filaments of light. Even fingertips appeared to shine with mysterious electrical patterns.
These striking images quickly became known as Kirlian photographs, and for many years people believed Kirlian had discovered something entirely new.
But the truth is that the strange glowing patterns seen in Kirlian photography were already known to scientists long before Kirlian began experimenting. In fact, the roots of corona discharge photography stretch back more than a century before his work. The story begins with an experiment performed in the eighteenth century.
Lichtenberg’s Strange Electrical Patterns
In 1777, the German physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg was studying static electricity produced by large electrostatic machines. During one experiment, he noticed something unusual.
After producing a high-voltage spark on a plate made of resin or sulfur, he sprinkled the surface with fine powders. Instead of falling randomly, the powder arranged itself into beautiful branching patterns spreading outward from the point where the spark had struck.
The patterns looked like tiny lightning bolts frozen on the surface.
These formations became known as Lichtenberg figures. They revealed a hidden structure of electrical discharges that scientists had never seen before.
What Lichtenberg had discovered was that electricity does not move randomly. When high voltage is released, it spreads through space along branching paths, forming patterns that resemble trees, lightning, or roots.
Lichtenberg had no way to photograph these patterns, but his discovery revealed an important idea that would later become essential to Kirlian photography: electrical discharges create visible structures.
When Electricity Met Photography
The invention of photography in the nineteenth century opened an entirely new possibility. By the late 1800s, photography had been greatly improved. The new gelatin dry plates were extremely sensitive to light and could capture very faint images. Scientists soon began experimenting with electrical sparks and photographic materials.
They discovered something remarkable.
A high-voltage spark could produce an image on a photographic plate without a camera. The electrical discharge itself created the photograph.
The plate was simply placed in an electrical circuit, and the spark exposed the photographic emulsion directly. The result was a strange kind of photography in which electricity acted as both subject and light source.
These experiments became known as electric photography.
Sanford’s Electric Photographs
One of the first scientists to study this effect carefully was physicist Fernando Sanford, working at Stanford University in the early 1890s.
Sanford placed objects such as coins directly on photographic plates and connected them to high-voltage electrical circuits. When the plates were developed, the images revealed something unexpected.
Instead of a simple outline of the coin, the photographs showed bright glowing fringes extending outward from the edges of the metal.
The coins appeared to be surrounded by halos of light.
Today, we know that these halos are produced by corona discharge. When high voltage builds up around an object, the surrounding air becomes ionized. This produces a faint glow as energized air molecules release light.
That light exposes the photographic plate.
Interestingly, Sanford believed the glowing halos were flaws in his photographs. He tried to eliminate them by improving the insulation of his apparatus.
What Sanford thought was a defect would later become the most important feature of the experiment.
Photographing Electricity Itself
By the mid-1890s, scientists had begun exploring ways to photograph electrical discharges directly. An article published in Popular Science Monthly in 1896 described a series of remarkable images created by allowing sparks to strike photographic plates.
These photographs required neither a camera nor a lens. The electrical discharge itself produced the image on the photographic plate.
Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 49, July 1896
The results were astonishing.
Some photographs showed branching lightning-like structures spreading outward across the plate. Others displayed delicate feather-shaped patterns depending on whether the electrical discharge was positive or negative.
The photographs revealed that electrical discharges could create intricate and beautiful structures, each shaped by the flow of electricity through the air.
The same article also showed photographs of lightning itself, captured during thunderstorms. These images captured the complex paths of lightning bolts across the sky.
In other experiments, sparks from electrical machines were directed across photographic plates, producing patterns that closely resembled miniature lightning storms.
One particularly striking image showed a circular glow surrounding a dark center, creating an effect that resembled the solar corona seen during a total eclipse.
For the first time, scientists could actually see and record the structure of electrical discharges.
Experiments for Amateur Scientists
By the early 1900s, these ideas had spread beyond laboratories into popular science books. Manuals describing simple electrical experiments began teaching readers how to create their own electrical photographs.
One such example appeared in the book Simple Experiments in Static Electricity by Percival G. Bull.
The experiment described in the book used high-voltage devices such as a Ruhmkorff induction coil or a Wimshurst electrostatic machine. A photographic plate was placed in the circuit, and coins were laid directly on its sensitive surface.
When the electrical charge was rapidly released through the plate, the coins produced glowing discharge patterns on the photographic emulsion.
After development, the coins appeared surrounded by branching electrical structures similar to the Lichtenberg figures discovered more than a century earlier.
Bull even suggested that the method could produce what he called “a kind of radiograph.” Although it had nothing to do with X-rays, the process could produce images without using a camera or ordinary light.
For readers of the time, this must have seemed almost like photographic magic.
The Rediscovery by Kirlian
Nearly forty years later, in 1939, electrical technician Semyon Kirlian and his wife Valentina made a similar discovery while working with high-voltage equipment.
They noticed that objects placed on photographic plates connected to high-frequency electrical circuits produced glowing images surrounded by delicate electrical coronas.
The Kirlians refined the technique and developed equipment capable of reliably producing these images. When they began photographing leaves and human hands, the results captured worldwide attention.
The technique soon became known as Kirlian photography.
But by that time, the phenomenon had already been quietly observed for generations.
Kirlian’s contribution was not the discovery of a new phenomenon, but the rediscovery and refinement of a fascinating electrical effect that had been known for more than a century.
A Long Path to Kirlian Photography
Seen in historical perspective, Kirlian photography did not appear suddenly in the twentieth century. By the time Kirlian began his work, the basic physics had already been explored for generations.
What Kirlian photography ultimately represents is not a mysterious force, but a remarkable way of photographing beautiful electrical effects, the faint glowing corona that forms wherever intense electric fields meet the air.
Synopsis
1777
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg discovers branching electrical patterns formed when high-voltage sparks strike insulating surfaces. These patterns become known as Lichtenberg figures, the first visual evidence of electrical discharge structures.
1891–1894
Physicist Fernando Sanford performs experiments in “electric photography.” Coins and metal objects placed on photographic plates and exposed to high voltage produce glowing halos caused by corona discharge. In 1894 publishes his paper “Some Experiments in Electric Photography” in Physical Review, documenting photographs of electrical discharge patterns produced on photographic plates.
1896
An article in Popular Science Monthly, Volume 49, July 1896, titled "Photographing Electrical Discharges" describes images produced directly by electrical sparks acting on photographic plates. The photographs reveal branching discharge patterns and lightning-like structures.
1900
The book Simple Experiments in Static Electricity by Percival G. Bull describes a practical experiment where coins placed on photographic plates are exposed to electrical discharge from a Ruhmkorff coil or Wimshurst machine, producing corona patterns.
1939
Semyon and Valentina Kirlian discovered that objects placed in a high-frequency electrical field can produce glowing corona images on photographic film. Their work became widely known as Kirlian photography.