Wacky presets

I have been absent from the posting routine for quite awhile. I have been busy with other interests and not spending much time thinking about photography. I need to get back to this channel of expression.

For now, here is an iPhone shot that seemed interesting when I captured it but was less interesting when I viewed it later. It just did not have good contrast and color. 

Rolling my computer pointer over the factory provided presets in Lightroom I came across a preset called "IR", presumably intended to make the photo look as though it was shot as infrared. The colors are not true and saturated and contrast is manipulated but somehow it seems nice to me so here it is. Not my usual treatment and obviously highly processed.

Let me know what you think.

Surreal

The cold continues to keep me from making pictures these days, which seems strange and almost surreal as it is something I enjoy. I always am on the look out for something interesting to photograph, but I just don't have the fortitude to stop, remove my gloves, dig out a camera, and venture into the chill.

So, speaking of surreal, browsing my photo library I came across this unusual image that was part of my infrared experiments a while back. The strange colors certainly have a warmth. The grass and trees seem to be snow covered but are not. This was taken on a warm summer morning in North Carolina.

Revisiting old photos keeps me going for now, but soon I will be back at it. New photos always happen when they happen.

More infrared

I occasionly have the urge to try infrared photography (see my earlier post).  I have a modified camera for this purpose which makes the process easier, but I am always surprised at the images that result. Exposure is pretty subjective and colors are false and therefore adjustable to many possibilities.

It is a change of pace, which I think is always good, and the results can make details like shape and texture more obvious.

Infrared experiments

Once again I am bending the intent of this blog (observations of the trivial and unnoticed) but indeed infrared is unobservable by the naked eye, but that is a technicality.

In the past I have experimented with infrared using a very dark filter that necessitated long exposures on a tripod. In the ancient times of silver photography special IR films were available (an may still be) but digital camera sensors are capable of seeing IR without issue.  Camera manufactures realize that this can cause unintended picture issues and so place a filter in front of the camera sensor to block IR.  But if you know what you are doing these filters can be removed.

I have an old Canon G6 camera (about 8 year old, antiquated!) that in its day was considered a pretty nice bit of kit, but by todays standards it is not much.  I recently had it modified by having the IR filter replaced with a visible light filter, meaning it takes photos using only IR light.  This was a moderately inexpensive way to experiment with IR photography while being able to shoot handheld and see a preview of the image on the viewfinder panel.

The results are maybe a bit gimmicky but interesting none the less.  The filter I choose to have installed does capture images with color information, but it is false color which can be manipulated for effect.  At any rate, if you have an interest is seeing some of my experiments, here is a link to a collection of a few shots on Flickr.