Experiments In Infrared Photography Volume 1

Infrared photography is the creation of photo images using infrared light. Infrared light is light that is in the 700-900nm. This is light that humans and cameras can’t usually see. No, this isn’t the type of light that you see on Apache attack helicopters or in the Predator movies. This is “near infrared light” that is just below what our eyes can see. The stuff from the predator movies and on the Apache attack helicopters is known as “far infrared light”.

To make a camera that captures only near infrared light, you need to permanently modify the cameras and totally void the warranty.

In the distant past, most films were sensitive to this type of light and would react to it, so camera manufacturers started adding filters to cameras. These filters block the near infrared light and allow visible light to pass to the camera sensor. To make a camera that can capture infrared images, you open the camera, pull out that filter and add a new one. The new filter will block visible light and allow the infrared light to pass through to the sensor creating some weird, wild images.

There some software stuff too. The existing software in camera usually freaks out a bit when you change the light spectrum on it. Imagine if you woke up one day and you only saw in ultraviolet like bees do. It would be understandable if you freaked out a bit too. So, you need to reprogram things a bit too.

It’s a fun new world. Things don’t behave the way you are accustomed to as a photographer. Infrared light is absorbed and reflected differently than you might expect and there is a lot of trial and error. The whites you see are usually plants that are just radiating near infrared light as a product of photosynthesis. Blacks you see are just like normal visual light photography. Those surfaces are absorbing all the near infrared light too. The sky does that and as you look higher and higher, it gets blacker. Near infrared turns up in weird and unexpected places.

Near infrared light is less energetic than visual light too and often creates dreamy, ethereal images in the final product. That has been a lot of fun to play with.