Ernie Button – Scotch Art

In his photographic series Vanishing Spirits Phoenix-based photographer Ernie Button explores what happens after the last drop is drunk in his macro photographs of evaporated single-malt Scotch whiskey. Not unlike the recently featured work of Jason Tozer, Button turns the minute details of stained glass into curious landscapes and colorful terrain. Of the project he says:

The idea for this project occurred while putting a used Scotch glass into the dishwasher. I noted a film on the bottom of a glass and when I inspected closer, I noted these fine, lacey lines filling the bottom. What I found through some experimentation is that these patterns and images that you see can be created with the small amount of Single-Malt Scotch left in a glass after most of it has been consumed. The alcohol dries and leaves the sediment in various patterns. It’s a little like snowflakes in that every time the Scotch dries, the glass yields different patterns and results. I have used different color lights to add ‘life’ to the bottom of the glass, creating the illusion of landscape, terrestrial or extraterrestrial. (Via Colossal.)