A Different Light

If you are a frequent visitor to this blog, you might be wandering why I haven't posted much new material lately or what I've been doing.

The reason I have not posted much new material lately is because I haven't found any new models lately.

In the interim I have been experimenting with digital infrared photography. There are several IR photos on this site of models, but most were shot with Kodak IR film. Kodak stopped making their IR film a couple years ago. IR photo enthusiasts have moved on to digital. Most digital imaging sensors are capable of capturing IR light, but they have a IR blocking filter attached to the sensor. To compensate, photographers can remove this filter and insert a filter that blocks normal light. In the last few weeks I bought and converted a digital SLR to shoot infrared light.

I don't normally break genre on this blog and post landscape images, but in lieu of nude work, I thought that today at least I would do just that.

Mage

This IR image of Alex also accentuates his grace.

Mark - IR

Since Kodak discontinued their infrared film I have been experimenting with alternative films. This one from Freestyle is pretty much a total wash when it comes to IR effects, but I still like the image.

For anyone experimenting with Freestyle's IR film, the problem with it is that the negatives come back very "thin" after developing (i.e. light like they were underexposed) and there is zero IR glow from the skin of the model.

Eric in IR

This image is from the infra red film shot during the recent photo shoot with Eric.

Sean IR

This week the images are infrared photos of Sean from my recent photo shoot with him.

After you finish enjoying the images in my blog, take a look at my website, which has been refreshed with all photo galleries and images.

The galleries are built with a freeware tool called jalbum. Not only does it make it easier for me to create new galleries, which means I will be able to update my website more frequently, it also provides a link from each image to purchase gallery prints.

Until now I have only refreshed my web site about once a year because of the effort involved in formatting the images for the web and constucting the galleries in html.

Alex in Red Light

These are two images of Alex shot on Kodak HIE, an infrared film. Just got the film back from A&I yesterday and scanned it.
As usual the IR shots are some of my favorites from the shoot. Part of the reason is that I love the grain, the glow and the contrast. Also, in this shoot I didn't start with the IR film like I normally do, which means both Alex and I had time to warm up, making the poses more creative.
The reason I usually shot the IR first is because it needs to be loaded in complete darkness, which makes it difficult to do in the middle of a shoot. I usually load it in my darkroom before we start. This time I loaded it in the darkroom, but used other cameras until we warmed up -- a lesson to remember next time.

This image was taken with Rollei's near IR film. The tint was created by lying to my film scanner. I told it that the film was color negative even though it was really black and white. The scanner attempted to compensate for the usual orange mask on color negative film and created the tint.

Bedroom Door

I have been working on a series of images framed by the french doors in the back of my house for several years. This image is part of that series, however this time, instead of the doors that open to the living room, I used the doors that open to the master bedroom. I also used a type of near infrared film from Rollei and a Mamiya medium format camera. Near infrared film has some of the softness and grain of true infrared film, but it also picks up quite a lot of normal light, so the infrared effects are not as pronounced. The model is Dwain. This is from the most recent shoot with him this August.

Alex in Infrared

I love using infrared film in my physique photography, especially for those shots that have a naturally contemplative look. The film creates a gauzy glow.

This is one of the infrared shots of Alex W. from my shoot last weekend.

Alan in Red Light

This photograph of Alan Demond is from the same session as the photos I posted last week. However this one was taken with infrared film. IR film picks up the warmth of the human body and makes subjects appear to glow.