Central Park looking West
Thought I'd share a little personal project with you all.
Ever since I was a teenager, I've admired InfraRed photography and wanted to give it a try. But doing it with a regular film camera always seemed a bit of a nightmare. In England it was hard to get the actual film itself, and even with the advent of digital photography, true IR cameras are hard to find. Fuji make one, but you have to sign an affidavit when you buy one positioning yourself as a professional photographer and guaranteeing you won't use it for surveillance purposes (!) Luckily there's always eBay, and a few months ago, I gambled a few hundred bucks on a home-converted Canon Digital Rebel, and since then have been experimenting whenever I'm out with the family.
Shooting infrared definitely takes some practice - exposure can be a bit hit and miss, depending on the IR reflectivity of the subject, so for every 100 shots I take, I maybe only get 4 or 4 worth sharing. But in playing with it, I've rediscovered the joy of photography, and fulfilled an ambition that's been on my mind for 25 years.
I thought I'd share some of my imagesl, after the jump. There's quite a few, so be prepared for a long load. I'd love to hear your comments.
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Very nice.
Son, you done have some talent.
Awesome! Now all I need is a pont and shoot that can automaticlly bracket exposure shots for hdr manipulation and an IR shot too for each time I take any photo! Know any cameras that do that?
Wow. those are some captivating shots scara. Very nice.
Creepy.....
Really awesome pics
Beautiful!
Pardon my ignorance of the process, but is this how you see these images through the viewfinder as you're taking them, or is that effect only visible afterwards or something? (I'd be curious to see a few that "didn't" turn out as well, for a comparison.)
Very cool.
Pretty amazing there, Ansel.
Very nice stuff, quite beautiful.
Holy Yamungafrijoles!
These photos are amazing! What are you doing putting them on a website? You should put them somewhere safe, like a bank or a zoo!
A zoo with armed hybrid bison/human guards, that is. With special training in photo-archiving and -defense.
Indeed, some of the shots that didnt work out would be very interesting to see.
i really really love your photography skills. but i was wondering if you could post a few of the not worth sharing photos to give me an idea of what IR looks like when it isn't amazing as the photographs above.
Jeez, why are you people all so transfixed on looking at my failures? I don't keep them if they're not good- "delete, delete, delete" :) A bad photograph is a bad photograph. Even in my film days, I was the guy at the drug store sorting through my pics and dumping the bad ones straight in the garbage before I got home.
In all honesty, judging IR exposure is a bitch - things which look dark to the naked eye glow under IR (like foliage), whereas bright blue skies can be almost black. So right now I bracket exposures. I have the camera set to take three shots in succession, with each one stop apart, which gives me an exposure spread. Then when I bring the photos into iPhoto, I look at the histograms of each shot and pick the one with the best dynamic range.
The other weird thing is that IR light focuses at a slightly different wavelength to regular light, which means although it may look in focus in the viewfinder, it's a little soft when you're done. So usually you have to combine bracketed exposure with the largest depth of field you can to compensate for that. Which means a longer exposure, which means camera shake, or blurred moving objects.
Finally, some things just reflect IR light weirdly. Fabrics are invariably white, people have strange skin tones, etc.
In other words, the shots I discard are exactly like the ones above, but too dark or too light, or out of focus, or blurred :) Or they're of albino zombies in wedding dresses.
If you want to see some of my other IR shots, the ones that didn't make the cut for this page, there's more on my IR flickr set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scaramouch/collections/72157620819863533/
And thanks everyone for the compliments, it meant a lot to me.
they are really gorgeous..
way cool mang.
the only thing i know about pictures is how to look at them. so i'm sure this is gona sound stupid but are all these pics taken during the day?
i really like black and white pictures because they always seem to be so pure and clear. these seem to take the clarity to a whole different level though. am i seeing it wrong or is that part of the allure?
the shot of the lighthouse is hella cool.
Yes, they're all daytime shops. IR makes foliage glow white and blue skies go very dark, especially when you point the camera away from the sun. It's times like this when I regret not being back in England, as this type of process works SO well with old churches and castles.
Good stuff Mouche.
If you ever get the chance, try infrared aero Ektachrome.
I got hold of a roll many years ago in Britain, and the results are spectacular.
Although, it wouldn't surprise me if you could achieve somewhat similar results with post-processing a digital photo - messing with the colour histograms.
Wow, these are great. Can you shoot video with an infrared camera?