Today’s Post by Joe Farace
There are many gods … gods of beauty and magic, gods of the garden, gods in our own backyards, but we go off to foreign countries to find new ones, we reach to the stars to find new ones— Rudolfo Anaya
Garden of the Gods is a public park and admittance is free. It’s located in Colorado Springs, Colorado and was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1971. When I visited the park with my friend Mark Toal we shot many of the images, including the below photograph in digital Infrared.
Amongst the Gods in Their Garden
The red rock formations that are found in The Garden of the Gods were created millions of years ago during a geological upheaval along a natural fault line. Archaeological evidence shows that prehistoric people visited this location around 1330 BC. At about 250 BC, Native American people, including Apache, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, Lakota, Pawnee, Shoshone, and Ute, camped in what would become “the park.” They are believed to have been attracted by the many kinds of wildlife and plant life that can be found in the area and used the overhangs created by some of the rocks for shelter.
The area was originally called Red Rock Corral. In August 1859 one of the surveyors, Rufus Cable, that were exploring the site was awestruck by the impressive rock formations, exclaimed, “Why it is a fit place for the gods to assemble. We will call it the Garden of the Gods.”
How I Made this Photo: This infrared image was made close to noon MDT, which is theoretically prime infrared shooting time but storm clouds were right around the corner and finally got us wet! The camera used was a Panasonic Lumix G6 that was converted to infrared capture by Life Pixel using their Enhanced IR (665 nm) filter. The lens was the Lumix G Vario 12-32mm f/3.5-5.6 at 18mm. The exposure was 1/800 sec at f/11 and ISO 400 with a plus one-third stop exposure compensation. The RAW file was processed in Silver Efex using their High Structure (harsh) preset and give a Platinum tone from PhotoKit2.
I’ve found that Life Pixel does a great job with IR conversions and they’ve done conversions for some of my Canon DSLRs and all of my Panasonic Lumix G-series mirrorless cameras. This is not a paid or sponsored endorsement, just my experience.
New copies of my book, The Complete Guide to Digital Infrared Photography are available from Amazon for $43.66, with used copies selling for around nine bucks, as I write this. Copes of my book Creative Digital Monochrome Effects that has a chapter on IR photography are $28.67 with used copies selling for around seven bucks, as I write this.