dancing peacock

Romanian photographer Radu Zaciu turns actual fruits and vegetables into beautiful glowing objects for an ongoing photography series entitled The Light Inside. His photos of radiant produce make the viewer take a closer look at the shape and textures of these pieces of fruit and veg and appreciate just how lovely they are. We’re particularly taken by how a head of cauliflower looks like an explosion that’s been frozen in time.

Zaciu creates these photos by first lighting the produce internally. He uses a drill to create a hole inside each vegetable or piece of fruit that’s just large enough to fit a light bulb. It’s important not to remove too much of the inner flesh of the subject, because that matter helps provide the unique colour particular to each object when illuminated.

“It all started with a game of words,” Zaciu tells us. “The German word for light bulb is ‘gluehbirne’, what literally means ‘glowing pear’.” His first attempt was literally with a pear, which he photographed as a light bulb.

After seeing how beautiful the internal lighting made the fruit, he decided to try the same thing with other fruits and veggies. Zaciu used small light bulbs from flashlights for smaller fruits and 220V 40W light bulbs for larger ones.

Zaciu shoots these photos as long-exposures in complete darkness because the amount of light put out by each piece of illuminated produce is actually very weak.

To follow along as Zaciu continues with this project, visit his photo set for The Light Inside on Flickr.