Photographers can create kaleidoscopic images before or after their shoots.
Most people used a kaleidoscope at some point during their childhood: those devices which would take any sight the user pointed them at and fragment them to produce colorful shapes and patterns that changed as the kaleidoscope twisted. Photographers may find themselves wanting to create these kinds of images from their subject matter, and can use either physical or digital means to do so.
Kaleidoscope Mechanics
A physical kaleidoscope works by filtering light through a circular formation of mirrors instead of a regular lens. As the image on which the user fixes the kaleidoscope passes through these mirrors, it fragments into segments and the user sees these segments as symmetrical pieces of a circular image. Some kaleidoscopes also include additional objects within their circular arrays of mirrors to further transform the image, such as beads or color filters so different segments will always have a particular hue.
Purpose
Photographers may want to recreate the visual effect of a kaleidoscope in their images for a variety of reasons. They might see a particular pattern within a subject that would look impressive when taken in isolation and duplicated into a circular pattern, or they may want to capture the kind of psychedelic imagery which a kaleidoscope can produce. Alternatively, the photographer may simply want to experiment with images that derive themselves from repeated visual patterns in different subject matters.
Kaleidoscope Filter
One of the simplest techniques to capture a kaleidoscope image in photography is to purchase a special camera lens which acts as a kaleidoscope. Rather than the narrow instruments built for the user to hold to one eye, these fit over the entirety of the camera lens and project the image the kaleidoscopic array of mirrors produces into the camera lens. This allows the photographer to shoot the kaleidoscopic image as if he was shooting any other subject.
Digital Rendering
A photographer can also make an image kaleidoscopic after he takes the original picture with digital imaging software. By cutting a particular triangular segment from the original picture and pasting it onto a blank canvas, the photographer can make mirror images of this segment to fill the canvass. The photographer can then morph individual segments, or change the hue of each segment, in order to add the kind of customization to the image that physical kaleidoscopes achieve through objects or colored lenses in its mirrors.
