Today’s Post by Joe Farace
I trust in nature for the stable laws of beauty and utility. Spring shall plant and autumn garner to the end of time. —Robert Browning
Mathew Brady once said, “Results are uncertain, even among the most experienced photographers.” With that quote, Brady was more likely talking about the daguerreotype process but he could just as easily been talking to would-be practitioners of infrared photography. To be fair, creating digital IR images is not all that complicated but at the same time, digital IR photography is not without it’s quirks (and features) and not for everyone. I have to assume that dark skies, snow-white foliage and increased contrast appeals to your aesthetic sensibilities and what the heck, it’s fun.
Before Winter descended upon Daisy Hill last year, I set myself the goal of doing as much infrared photography I could until all of the leaves finally dropped from the trees. On the particular day that I made the featured image, I went for a walk around nearby Bingham Lake and took the counter-clockwise path to look for some different views.
How I made this photograph: The above image was made on the path around Bingham Lake, near Parker, Colorado. It was shot with a Panasonic Lumix G5 that had been converted to infrared capture by LifePixel with the company’s Standard IR (720nm) conversion. The lens used was a Lumix G Vario 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 at 23mm. The exposure was 1/640 sec at f/8 and ISO 400.
The image was captured in RAW format and lightly processed in Adobe Camera Raw before moving into Silver Efex for monochrome conversion. Since these leaves were backlit and appeared to be glowing I added the Glamour Glow filter from Color Efex and because I like the fairy tale mood the glow filter produces.
Life Pixel does a great job with IR conversions and they have done most the conversions for my Canon DSLRs and all of my Panasonic Lumix G-series cameras. This is not a paid or sponsored endorsement, just my experience.
Used copies of my book, The Complete Guide to Digital Infrared Photography are available from Amazon for $13.85 as I write this. My book Creative Digital Monochrome Effects has a chapter on IR photography and is available new from Amazon for $11.46 with used copies starting around five bucks