Digital ImageMaker World

During the second week of January I was up country past Trentham in central Victoria (Australia) meeting with a friend to plan some upcoming photography workshops. After the meeting I wandered off in the car through the surrounding area shooting.

On part of this journey I drove into an area where there was a lot of smoke from some nearby bushfires. This smoke was creating interesting sky effects and so I started shooting as I travelled through the area, all the time making sure that I was well away from the fires and that none were getting closer (safety comes first).

The images below were shot with my Canon 350D that was converted for IR by maxmax.com.

The smoke was thin here but producing interesting cloud effects in this photograph

Infrared photography by Wayne J. Cosshall

Photograph of the fire off in the distance

red/blue channel swap was done in Photoshop

Thick smoke gave strong aerial perspective in this photograph

Infrared photography

I’ve been testing the new Lensbaby Composer with the four interchangeable lenses. A full review will be going up on the new Lensbaby page on DIMi soon, but before then I wanted to show you some of the results.

These shots are taken with the two element glass lens on my converted for IR Canon 350D.

I’d like to wish you all the best for the season. Happy summer or winter solstice, Christmas or whatever festival this time of year means to you and yours. May you have a safe, happy and healthy season and my 2009 bring you health, joy, happiness and wealth.

Today I just had to get out and do some real shooting. I’ve had a very traumatic four weeks or so. No personal drama but as School Council President at my daughter’s school I’ve been sadly in the middle of a huge drama unfolding there. My attempts to help the situation have worked but at great stress to me. So a trip to the country was sorely needed to recharge my batteries and reconnect with the Earth.

I had a number of cameras with me, two Olympus and a Sony, and you will see those images elsewhere. But I also had my converted for IR 350D, which I love. So here are some of the shots I took with that camera and a new processing process I will detail later. These images were taken around Hanging Rock, which features in some of them. Enjoy.

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Last Saturday I ran an infrared photography workshop in the country at Trentham.

Before doing this I had been intending to add new, more detailed, infrared tutorials to DIMi. During the workshop I noted the questions the participants had and also those areas that needed more explanation. Since it was effectively a long, four day weekend here for Cup Day, I spent time on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday putting together two detailed tutorials: one on shooting IR with a normal digital camera and the other on the processing that is necessary and optional on such infrared images.

The result is up on the DIMi infrared photography beginners page.

I am hoping these provide a great starting point for those considering this area of photography that I love.

Recently I spotted a few hot air balloons floating near our house. So I grabbed my IR converted 350D and a 100-400mm lens and started shooting. The best shots were when they had their fires going, as this strongly emits in the IR and gives a strong white point in the image.

Life does sometimes get in the way of photography. We’ve had a few dramas and distractions here over the last month. Some of these are continuing but the end is, I think, in sight. The rest are resolved.

The thing is, some of these issues and the people involved have been quite emotionally draining. It is hard to get motivated for creativity sometimes when that is going on, though when you can make it happen the creativity really does help you to get past things. This is the key, somehow you have to make good, positive things happen and keep your focus on them. Eventually the other stuff doesn’t seem so important.

Some quite positive stuff has been happening lately. I’ve been running workshops from a new venue and they have been going well. We spent a lot of time converting a garage into a joint studio for my wife, Adriana, a painter, and myself. While not huge it is now a nice space to work in and feels good for us both. It also offers us what we have always talked about, the opportunity to explore some joint artwork developments.

My first book is off with possible publishers for consideration and my second book, a photography title, is near to completion. DIMi has been redesigned and now has some new behind the scenes features, which will pay dividends shortly. The An ImageMaker analog photography site is up and awaiting the first articles, while The Digital ImageMaker Gallery of photography and digital art is now up and running and has the first group of invited photographers and artists working on their galleries and statements.

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about just how important a creative outlet is to the frame of mind of creative people. For myself having a creative outlet, my photography, actually working for me is a key to overcoming life’s hassles from the issues of being school council president at my daughter’s school, having negative people having a go at you and having things that you thought were a done deal turn flat. Stresses happen but with an outlet you can weather them.

I’ve seen some really positive examples recently. Bonny Lhotka, one of the three who published the great Digital Art Studio book (our review of the book can be read here) sent me her latest activity, a training DVD in doing inkjet transfers. The DVD, Inkjet Transfer Techniques, is outstanding and was an excellent next step for Bonny. Through watching it I also noticed she had moved to selling some unique products (clear film for inkjet printing to do the transfers with) that make perfect sense and nicely extend her activities. Another comes from my spiritual counseling work that I do with people. I recently really helped a client to get a different perspective on their life. That’s what it is all about.

When life presents you with some challenges, try to find a way to keep positive and to keep creating. If you do, you may just create a much more positive future for yourself.

Infrared photography to me is just more interesting than standard photography. It stands out, the color differences (when shooting color IR) and the bold white of trees and grass (when shooting black and white IR). It forces you to look at things in a different way. IR photography is like a breath of fresh air.
The camera I use for IR photography is a self modified HP 945 with Hoya 72 filter. When shooting panoramics I use the Nodal Ninja rotating panoramic tripod head.
Each Bellagio pano has between fifty and sixty photos stitched together utilizing the Photomerge feature in Photoshop, and was manually edited for alignment and blending. In order to manage the rather large size of these panos, I composed them in a left and right half, then manually edited the halves together. These photos were taken in June of 2007 in Las Vegas, NV.
The flooded street pano is only 8 photos, also stitched using Photoshop’s photomerge feature, plus manual editing. This street is one of many in St. Louis, MO affected during the recent flooding in the Midwest. These photos were taken on March 21, 2008.

Reggie M. Linsao

www.boomslice.com
reggie@boomslice.com

As much as I try to predict what will happen when I take an infrared photograph, there’s a certain level of mystery that still surrounds the whole process. “OK. That grass will go white. Those shadows look interesting, so that should be good. Plus, the color of the sky should add some drama and offset the white. Ready to fire, Captain.”

So I guess it’s no surprise that I don’t fully understand the science of light waves and color temperature behind infrared photography. That’s not why I like it. I like the experimentation, the surprise. I like not knowing what’s going to happen. I like finding new locations and wondering, “What would this place look like in IR?”

When I started shooting infrared photos with my Canon G3 and Hoya R72 filter, I thought I was trapped behind red tinted glasses. Yeech! As a nature photographer, I’m always looking for vibrant color, and a black and white conversion just didn’t cut it. Yes, black and white can be fantastic, but this was a digital medium. So I knew that if I started to tweak the white balance, I could influence the final picture and get something more. So one day in 2004, I took real control of my camera and set a custom white balance based on some random element in my photo. From that day forward, I’ve been hooked on infrared.

Photographer’s Statement

When I first viewed images made with IR film some 15 years or so ago I was not impressed and viewed them at klugey. When I met my now partner and love of my life I did a 180 degree turnaround. She was doing hand painted photography at the time using IR film as the initial imaging capture medium and the high contrast printing she used worked very well to print the images which she then painted. I began to shoot the Konica near-IR film and then moved onto Kodak HIE because I wanted more of the ethereal look that HIE presented.

Working in infrared b/w photography contrasted to the other bw work I was doing in the editorial and stock photography areas. Infrared photography gave me the artistic outlet and method I was looking for that was not present with other films. Now, I combine IR b/w, some color, and converted b/w imagery to my art photography displayed at the outdoor art shows we participate in. The subject matter is different for all three mediums and allow me to diversify my exhibiting portfolio.

All of these images were taken with an Olympus Wide-E 35mm Rangefinder using Kodak HIE and shot through an 87C IR filter to capture the most IR effect from the scene. I find a rangefinder camera to be ideal for capturing infrared photographs because there’s no need to view the scene through a SLR viewfinder. Experience working in this way taught me which exposure, as read on the primitive meter, was appropriate and bracketing in 3-5 exposures gave me what I had mentally previsualized.