[LargeFormat] RE: IR photos from Marshfield Massachusetts

[Michael Sullivan]

> Dear Diane,
>
> Yes, the red/cyan "look" screams (at least to me it does) that  "I was 
> shot using infrared".
> I'd much rather have people catch the "feel" of the scene than be hit 
> in the face with any obvious technique.
> In fact, I usually consider it a failure of the artist if the first 
> thing I see in an image is technique instead of subject or intent.
> This would be true of any art form.
>
> Now the "false color" component of my described technique relies upon 
> the use of a quality red filter instead of a black IR filter. A black 
> IR filter will only leave infrared information in the image, and thus 
> will basically be a monochrome black and white image with a pronounced 
> IR affect
>
> By using a red filter some of the green, yellow, orange, and all of 
> the red and near IR are present. The color gamut has thus been 
> squashed (and expanded) into a new color space distributed among three 
> arbitrary RGB channels. By converting the false red to false blue and 
> the false cyan to false red, we achieve a partial "full color" EFFECT, 
> but it is clearly NOT full color at all. Hence my use of the term 
> "false color" for both before and after, which I now realize would 
> confuse a long-time user of IR film as color IR film was always touted 
> as "false color" by Kodak and others. Upon consideration, I've decided 
> that my use of the term is not only appropriate (i.e. the colors are 
> indeed false and nothing like what the eye sees) but reinforces the 
> concept that these images are NOT simply color shots that have been 
> manipulated.
>
> As for the "normalness" of the resultant final images -- there was no 
> yellow or orange anywhere in these scenes! The sky was blue of course, 
> but the trees trunks were basically grey (instead of orangey), the 
> marsh grasses were greyish brown (not yellow) and the evergreen was 
> likewise dark green (also instead of orangey). There *IS* a pronounce 
> IR effect going on here, but it is quietly subtle -- just what I was 
> looking for.
>
> Notwithstanding, I have ordered a complete set of B+W filters (090, 
> 091, 092) and intend on shooting most scenes as a combination of: 
> "normal color", "partial color IR", and "full monochrome IR". -- I'll 
> likely layer components of each into my final image in Photoshop.
>
> J Michael Sullivan



> On Monday, January 26, 2004, at 08:52  PM, Diane Maher wrote:
>
>> Michael,
>> I am confused with your IR pics.  It looks like you took the ones that
>> looked like they were IR and made them into 'normal' color shots.
>> There's not really anything that I see as being 'false color' about 
>> the
>> manipulated shots.  I do shoot IR film (both b/w & color) so I was 
>> just
>> curious.  Do you consider your originals to be 'stereotypical' IR 
>> shots?
>>
>> Diane