Photos of creatures created by tossing sand in the air

Photographer Claire Droppert experiments with using gravity as a mechanic for art, tossing natural objects in the air and snapshotting how they fly and fall.

She's just released a second set of "Sand Creatures" -- gorgeous and ghostly shapes created by clumps of sand being tossed in the air, and photographed as they begin to break apart.

As she writes on her site ...

"Sand comes alive and creatures are born in frozen moments of weightlessness..."

[snip]

... these are captured on beaches in Holland, and contain landscape, natural elements and zero gravity. The Sand Creatures series focuses on nature in an unexpected way. The explosive and at times powdery scenes of the grainy sand being thrown into the air can be taken as a manifesting life form, and they become sand creatures.

Here are a few more of them ...

You can see more of Droppert's work via her Instagram, Twitter, her online print store, or Facebook accounts.

(Thanks to Droppert for permission to use her photos here!)