HD color video, 19 min
A hummingbird breathes 250 times per minute.
It’s heartbeats 500 times per minute.
It can flap its wings 200 times in a second.
The color of its feathers isn’t quite real.
Red and yellow can’t be found in hummingbirds. We see these colors as an optical illusion. Their plumages actually present a scarce variety of pigments. However, the structure of each feather, made up by micro prominences and angles, reflect the light just like a prism suspended on the edge of a window.
A hummingbird is a trompe l’œil. The Aztec culture called them “beams of light”.
This film depicts the restoration process of 239 hummingbirds from the Eli-Lefevbre Collection, one of the oldest in the world. Acquired by the Rothchild family in 2010.