While in Alaska a few months back, we had pretty bad weather the whole time we were there. With the weather, we had few chances to make colorful sunrise or sunset photos, so we made a lot of infrared photographs and processed the images into monochrome. Here are some of my favorites:
If you do not know much about infrared photography, I woud suggest you look into it at Lifepixel. They do camera conversions and can advice you about what conversion will work best for you. I would also take a look at the work of Nevada Wier, our favorite infrared photographer. We also had a chance to take a class with her She is great.
We usually like to shoot infrared in bright sunlight in the middle of the day. You definitely need bright white light. Infrared does not work as well in the yellow light of sunrise and sunset.
High contrast subjects work particularly well, like the glacier above that mostly appeared black and white already.
Though the red barn below looked great in color, it also looked pretty in monochrome because of the great clouds.
A couple of things to remember…when doing monochrome conversions that I like, blue skies will becomre black and green foilage will become white. Because of this, not all subjects are good candidates for infrared. I usually make a color photo and an infrared photo, if I really like the subject and the light is right. I then decide later which one I like best.
You do have to carry two cameras, but I don’t mind since it gives me options. We are currently shooting infrared with Fujifilm X-T1s and color with X-T2s. I have my X-T1 set to record a raw file and a .jpeg with a film simulation of monochrome with red filter.
To see more of (and buy) our photographs, please go to www.pamphotography.com.
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