Infrared Photography

Direkt ins Gesicht - Straight in the Face

The Big Bang of infrared photography was when, in the early 1900s, Robert Wood created a special filter. That filter blocked visible light but allowed infrared light to pass, allowing him to take the first infrared photographs.

In the 1930s Kodak began producing infrared-sensitive film and selling it to the public. Minor White was among the photographers to give IR a try. It was super-high contrast black and white but, well, different. The leaves of trees and leaves of grass rendered bright white and was called the “Wood effect.”

Minor White - ca1955

During World War II the U.S. military used Kodak’s recently-developed Aerochrome to find and target the enemy. After Aerochrome was introduced into the civilian market in the early 1960s, infrared photography became more popular among artists and photographers. They used it to create surreal and dreamlike images that fit perfectly with the zeitgeist of the ‘60s and ‘70s. The general public started seeing IR images on album covers and in photos.

Elliot Landry - Bob Dylan 1968

The film universe started collapsing with the rise of digital photography. Film shooters are left with only a couple of near-infrared black and white films like Ilford SFX 200 and Rollei IR 400. Aerochrome is gone along with the other true IR films. I’m not aware of any IR color film that is being made today.

My time in the sun with Ilford SFX 200 was in 2022. I bought ten rolls on a whim. Who does that? I wrote an article for Ilford about it. I bought an R72 filter and started shooting….

I was blown away, stunned, and astonished. I had found a film that spoke to me.

The photographs are like black and white at a higher voltage. Latrobe vs. Las Vegas. Caffeine-Free Diet Coke vs. Red Bull.

Gone were the early morning photowalks and the quest for perfect light. I could sleep in on Saturdays and head out into the sunshine when I wanted to. Perfect light for IR photography is about any time between 10 am and 3 pm with a blue or partly cloudy sky.

Exposure and setup is simple. On my Hasselblad or Linhoff: f16 for great depth of field and an R72 filter. Exposure time of 1 second in the brightest sun and 4 seconds for ones like this:

One of my interests has been learning German. It’s been a slow and informal process that I started back in 2020. I sometimes listen to German music. There are two lines in the Prinz Pi song 1,4m that come to mind… “Aus punktgroßen Sternen sickert das Licht. Einmal durch die Galaxie uns direkt ins Gesicht.”

In these lines he is rapping about starlight coming across the galaxy and hitting him straight in the face. That’s the way I feel about strong IR photos: they hit you straight in the face. This is why most people must not like them. If they were popular, then Instagram would be filled with IR photography and not cat photos.

My fling with Ilford SFX fizzled out by the time the leaves started turning in 2022. It was like a high school summer romance: not meant to last but sweet in the event.

As the northern hemisphere tips toward the sun and we head into spring 2023, I have been thinking about infrared photography and am ready to renew the romance. I’m stocked up on Ilford SFX. I’m also considering an IR conversion on a digital camera to explore that corner of photography for a bit.

It’s going to be fun.

Another season in the sun.

_____________________________________

Thanks for reading this installment of Behind the Camera!