Liquid nitrogen, an Air Gun, and high-speed-low-drag German photography:

To achieve this, photograher Martin Klimas  sought out flowers with particularly complex internal structures and froze them to -200° Celsius in liquid nitrogen. Once they were frozen, he had to be careful. “They’re as fragile as raw eggs,” he says. “You can destroy them by sneezing.”  After the flowers were frozen, he brought them to his set and placed the stem in a vice to hold the blossom in front of a white background. He used a normal air gun rigged with a device that let him remotely pull the trigger, and took a series of shots right at the moment of impact.

Allllllllways with the air guns in these types of things.  Yea I get that you don’t need a high caliber round to shatter a liquid nitrogen’d flower but come on!  The photographer is German, so I’m sure like every German guy I imagine he probably has legit ties to someone at HK who could toss one of those “too dangerous for civilians” MP7s his way for an afternoon.  Does HK hate german civilians too?  Or is that just American civilians they hate?

Lots more pictures over at the Smithsonian blog.

Thoughts?  Want to see Richard Ryan shoot some flowers in the face?  That would probably upset some of the California hippies he’s surrounded by.

Hat tip: Jay