If you know me well you know I don’t think of my vocation as being a photographer – but rather as a portrait artist. This isn’t some attempt to glorify my job title, nor is it meant in any way to trivialize those who are photographers. It is just me being honest with myself and my clients. Now of course there are days and times when I am a photographer – like when I am at sporting events or on a commercial assignment, OR, to tie into the title of this blog, when I am photographing with my converted IR camera!
Infrared is at that end of the spectrum we simply cannot see. And in actuality neither can most normal cameras. However, it is always there and when we seek to capture using that light the results can be incredibly dramatic and eye-catchingly different. There are colour infrared images as well as B&W infrared images and there are several ways to get an infrared image. The easiest and the best is to use a converted digital camera. There are several companies that do this now but my go to company is Life Pixel. I am on my third IR converted body for reasons I won’t bother you with. But I love photographing in B&W Infrared! It takes a while to get used to pre-envisioning want you are going to get and sometimes I am still surprised.
The first time you use one of these converted cameras and look at the back of your camera you are very disappointed – it looks like a major screw-up by the camera! Before you make some menu changes the whole image looks magenta and I mean really magenta! AND it looks flat. But by shooting in RAW and learning some tricks or using some good software plug-ins you can get some amazing results.
But beware, you really need to learn all you can regarding composition when working with monochrome images. A black & white image with poor composition is just a “really nothing” photograph – there is no colour to fool people. But a B&W image with great composition is impressive and when that B&W image is captured using the Infrared spectrum well you can really have an image that people love.
For me I like to take this even one step further and create long panoramas like the one above. These make great office and home decor for hallways and other wide open spaces. My other favourite type of B&W IR image to create is by using my 8mm fisheye lens like the image below. This tree is actually as straight as an arrow and I am about 2 feet away from it! If you would like to see more of my Infrared Images simply click here.
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