I don’t know why I’m still surprised to find Southern Californian photographers who are doing water manipulating photos–but I still am! (See this, this, this, this, and this for examples.) Here’s a new one from Guiliano Bekor, who added in a little oil to the water mix. The result are colorful, swirling photos that are a new entry in this water/photo canon.

The photos are his Emulsion. The set sees pretty women under or in water with oils and other liquids mixing before them. What’s most interesting about these photos and the effect is that they often don’t even look like photos because of the way the water and oil interact. Some look like light combinations or blurry, blurry, blurry impressionist paintings: it’s such an effortless effect!

“Oil and water are thought to have an impossible chemistry,” Bekor explains in his statement on the body of work. “This series explores the kaleidoscopic affect of color as it transforms into shapes, obscuring the faces of subjects and rendering them painterly.” His Emulsion is so but the results are absolutely huge. Also, it’s funny that he notes the kaleidoscopic element because that’s exactly how it looks–but we totally didn’t put the two together.

The work is great and there are lots and lots of entries in this series. You can check it out here. Bekor has a lot of other great work too–some with water, some without–that you should check out here.