Category: Infared

Artquest 30/30 Days 20 and 21

The hint for Day 20 was ‘Hate it’ and I didn’t have to think about this one. I absolutely loath the dreary wet days we seem to have had for weeks and yet again is was lashing down outside. I had recently learnt how to make abstract images using multiple exposures and custom white balance settings in camera and today, I would try this from the dry warmth of out conservatory. It took several attempts, but this image has raindrops on the window, rain falling in the pond and the barometer, which shows ‘change’, hopefully for the better.

Another odd hint for Day 21, ‘Make art from your last rejection’. I haven’t really had many rejections as I haven’t really submitted work for anything much. However, members of the RPS Landscape Group were recently invited to submit up to 2 images for the Landscape Exhibition 2025. We were advised that only 1 from each member would be considered and one of mine has been included, and so for day 21, I have gone for what is technically my rejection from this submission. I have reworked the image so that I can honestly say I have made some new work. Another infrared image which has turned out quite different from when I originally processed it.

Artquest 30/30 Days 18 and 19

I have a few days to catch up on so will do a few in the same post rather than separately as I don’t have great deal so say about some of them.

Day 18 was a case in point. The hint was ‘Make it green‘. My interpretation of green was environmentely friendly,but I got stuck with that so reverted to some work in progress, which was partly green and that I needed to get finished. A Mariner’s Compass that I had started at a workshop using a technique called Foundation Paper Piecing. I had done a little bit in the past but our tutor introduced a different way of working which I found quite tricky but having got the hang of it, actually quite like it.

I needed to get the piece done before Friday when we had out next meeting so this was an ideal opportunity to work on that. I had already done 2 of the 4 blocks so another one achieved my challenge and only one left to do to complete the work.

Day 19 hint was ‘Make your work commercial’, which I chose to ignore because my artwork is my leisure time and if I think of it in commercial terms it becomes too stressful. Instead, I went back to some infrared images I had taken a few weeks ago but not got round to processing and I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the result. I had always been told that in order to take decent infrared images, you needed sunshine. Not so. A few months ago I listened to a talk by a photographer who does quite a lot of infrared photography and he said, you can take infrared in any conditions, you just get different results.

Clearly this image needs to be processed but you can already see some definition in the sky so I thought it had some potential. You never know what you will get with infrared though so the end result was a pleasant surprise. A number of people have thought it was a frosty morning but no, just another grey day.

Introduction to Infrared

A few weeks ago I attended a workshop at the Photographic Academy at the Imaging Warehouse in Stratford on Avon, on Infrared Photography. I’d been toying with this for a while and was inspired by a couple of people I follow on twitter, so when I found this workshop an hour from home, I thought I’d give it a go. The workshop was run by Simon Weir, https://www.simonweir.com/, whose main specialism is producing and photographing classical music performances but his infrared photography is stunning. There were 6 of us, all mail apart from me and all complete novices when it comes to IR. I had previously run an infra red film through an old Canon A1 with an R72 filter but but was such hard work trying to compose and focus, then add the filter and try to figure out how much to adjust the exposure by, it ended up being quite an expensive experiment.

Simon took us through the basic or equipment and process then off we went to a lovely little churchyard not far from the workshop venue at Hampton Lucy, where we were able to put our new found skills into practice, either using our cameras with one of Simon’s filters, or one of Simon’s adapted cameras. I opted for my camera and an R72 and R85 filters as I would be using my camera in the future. Apparently some lenses result in hot spots when filming infrared, including my Fuji 16-55 2.8, however I had no such problem with mine, either then or since.

Back in the workshop venue, Simon took us through post processing both in Lightroom and Silver Efex pro for black and white and Photoshop for colour. The latter was new to me as well as I had never encountered ‘colour swapping’ before and that is another whole new ball game to get to grips with.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable day and we have been fortunate enough to have had the sunshine since for me to be able to practice now that I’ve got my own R72 filter for my Fuji lens. watch this space