Gorgeous mini lightning storms created with portable Tesla coil

Tesla coils are super cool. But while most of us have only ever encountered the archaic contraptions in museums, if you've got some pluck, you can use a portable version to generate your own lightning storms at home.

That, at least, is what photographer Marc Simon Frei has done in this phenomenal series of photographs. Using an 1920s-era electrotherapy device (basically, a mini Tesla coil) that he purchased on Ebay, Frei was able to generate electrical discharges and capture them using a Nikon Df, a macro extension tube, and a Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens. No doubt his equipment was put in peril by the electrifying shoot, but the risk seems to have paid off.