Beautiful flowers

Beautiful flowers? Look a little closer and you'll see these stunning bouquets are actually drops of paint

At first glance, these incredible images look like still-life portraits of flowers.

But far from being drawn in the traditional way, they are created by photographing fast-moving droplets of paint as they fall through the air.

Artist Jack Long, 53, spends months painstakingly planning and testing each work before capturing them with a high-speed camera.

Blooming marvellous! This stunning floral picture was created by photographing a droplet of paint falling through the air after months of painstaking planning and testing

Paint-ently clever: Artist Jack Long uses water mixed with thickeners and dyes and then uses a flash to capture the right moment as the mixture falls through the air

Another of Jack Long's paint-drop images

Jack is keen to keep the secret of his stunning pictures to himself

Glossy finish: Jack, from Wisconsin, U.S., calls the work 'Vessels and Blooms' and says he enjoys working with liquids because 'all the pictures are different'

However, Jack is keen to keep his technique to himself and will not reveal exactly how his pieces are created.

He uses water mixed with thickeners, pigments and dyes. The paint is suspended in air for a split second and he uses an electronic flash to get the moment just right.

The images contain a range of leaves, stems, petals and even the pots are made out of paint.

Jack, who calls the work 'Vessels and Blooms', said he enjoys working with liquids because 'all the pictures are different.'

Droplet dead gorgeous: Jack says hundreds of captures are made in testing and then many more during the final stage, with just a very few standing out as the best

Stem-sational: Jack says none of the pictures are composites from multiple images, unless otherwise stated and he only uses Photoshop to 'clean up' the photograph

Flower power: Jack spends months using trial and error by mixing variations of red, blue and yellow and green to create his incredible bouquets

He said: 'I love working with liquids because of their incredible versatility when creating high speed photography. It is as much chance as it is preparation and planning. They are all different.

'I like to use a lot of colours, variations and mixes of red, blue and yellow and green. The work takes a great amount of planning, set building and testing.

'This series was a culmination of months of planning and testing. Hundreds of captures are made in testing and then many more during the actual final capture stage. A very few stand out as being the best.

'All of my images are created in one single capture. One picture. I do not make composites from multiple images, unless otherwise noted. All of my fluid flowers are as captured. Photoshop is only used to 'clean up' the image and to enhance the image with basic tools.'

Jack, from Wisconsin, America, added: 'What I like the most is that my work is so unique from other splash or liquid photography. The main goal is to create something truly original.'