infrared4

The following photos were taken with my new Fuji IS-1, which is a wonderful camera! I finally got my hands on it in May, after months of waiting, writing letters and signing forms, after I'd just about given up hope.  I love the grainy look of the photos when they are zoomed in on, they look almost as if they've been painted.

Today's photo is a polytunnel - one of the first photos I took with the converted Nikon. I'm not sure I increased the contrast enough in these early photos, something I still find hard - judging just when a picture is right. I spend so much time staring at the images that I lose all sense of perspective. The photos straight out of the camera (the Nikon) are very grey and washed out, you have to adjust the levels significantly in photoshop, but I'm always worried about overcooking it.

I liked the slightly out of place look of the empty polytunnel against the grasses and the hillside in the distance - in the middle of nowhere.  It makes me think of the x-files and secret experimental research stations.

I went out today in the hope of taking some more infrared photos, but it just wasn't quite the right setting. I look back at the first infrared pictures I took, and am always disappointed that they are not quite as good as I thought at the time (I'm always quite pleased at any photograph I take that is in focus and reasonably well composed!) - the only way I will improve is by taking lots and lots more photos.

I love gothic imagery and architecture, and romantic crumbling ruins, castles or follys on wild stretches of coastline or desolate moorland. I also like photographing in old graveyards - such beautiful monuments and tombstones.

I discovered infrared photography a couple of years ago, when I came across a book on infrared film photography by Hugh Milsom (Infra-Red Photography: A Complete Workshop Guide, Fountain Press, 2001).  I don't have the knowledge or money to experiment with infrared film, or not at the moment, but then I had the chance to use a converted digital camera - a Nikon Coolpix 950 with the infrared filter replaced with clear optical glass.  I now have a Fuji Finepix IS-1, which is sold as an infrared camera - without the internal infrared cut filter.  I'm keeping this log partly to encourage myself to get out there and take more photos!

Photographs taken with the Nikon are in tiff format, with the levels adjusted in Photoshop and sometimes with the noise artificially increased slightly to look more like infrared film images.