More Red infrared

Shooting infrared using a Red movie camera seems a popular activity. I've come across another nice example, this time an entry for a Brazilian One Minute Movie competition. The video is from a company called Kipper Tie, based in Surrey (near where I used to live). It's called Infrared Landscapes and was shot on Chobham Common.

I attempted to embed the vido but it didn't work ... so just follow this link.

Russia: A World Apart (Simon Marsden and Duncan McLaren)

It's very sad that Simon Marsden's refrigerated and dwindling stock of Kodak HIE outlasted him. He was, to my mind, the finest and most consistent user of that idiosyncratic film stock with its haloed highlights and exaggerated grain. That's not to understate his abilities in the darkroom, but it's the classic HIE look that I will remember him by.

With its distinctive look, many people have thought of infrared film as showing something supernatural. When he loaned us a print of Moydrum Castle for the Infrared 100 exhibition, Simon wrote to me saying ...

The goal of my work has essentially always been the same: to demonstrate that magic is real or that reality is magic. I have used infrared film for its ethereal quality, day is turned into night and nothing in this twilight world is quite as it seems. The unusual texture of the film's grain produces a timeless feature that lies somewhere between an etching and a photograph.

The trail that began with ruined Irish castles has finished with an eerie collection of Russian landscapes in the book Russia: A World Apart. Some are unkempt ruins, which always lend themselves to the increased contrast that infrared brings. I sometimes think that our ruins here in England are too neat: should a derelict monastery be set in manicured grounds? Not all the places visited are ruined: the Winter Palace in St Petersberg is not, but stands under a brooding cloudy sky while the sun fails to break out from behind the Alexander Column. Backlighting is another hallmark of much of Simon's work.

Chernyshev Estate, Yaroplets, Moscow Region

I should not forget the text. Duncan McLaren, who collaborated on those Irish Ruins (indeed he instigated that first project) and a post-USSR venture beyond 'the wall', accompanies the photographs and photographer again. He tells the stories of not only the artefacts' past but often what is happening now; the people he and Simon met on their journey.

Russia: A World Apart is an atmospheric book; in keeping with the best of Simon Marsden's work. Infrared photography is a genre that you either love or just don't get. This book demonstrates one aspect of it at its best.

[Published by Mudds & Stoke at £25 ISBN 978-0-9573795-0-3]

James Jarché

The ITV channel in the UK are repeating the Perspectives documentary where David Suchet "follows in the footsteps of" his grandfather, photographer James Jarché, known as Jimmy. It's on Sunday May 12th at 2215.

Although this documentary doesn't touch on it (but don't let that stop you watching), Jarché was one of the pioneering photographers who, in the 1930s, experimented with the new infrared film and had several of these photos published in the Daily Herald. One of them, showing children watching a cartoon in the cinema in 1934, was included in the Infrared 100 exhibition. He was originally asked by Ilford to document the process of making film, which happens in the dark, and he used Ilford's infrared film for that.

You can see the cinema photo in the National Media Museum/Science and Society collection and Wikipedia have an article about him.

New infrared camera ... at a price

One of the photographs included in the Infrared 100 exhibition was by Carol Highsmith. She's been going round the USA for the Library of Congress with a medium format camera with a digital back and has shot some fantastic infrared images ... and in the digital world medium format means resolutions of 40 megapixels and more. In Carol's case her back had to be converted but Leaf have now announced a wide spectrum medium format back 'out-of-the-box' called the Leaf Credo WS ... for wide spectrum.

Leaf's leaflet (!) [info on their web site] explains that you can use the back to shoot infrared with an infrared-pass filter, normal images with an infrared blocking filter and Infrarcolor with an orange/red filter. (By this I assume they mean the faux colour images we're used to seeing.) The back may also shoot UV but I don't know that for sure as yet and it is very lens dependent. There are two versions with resolutions of 60 and 80 megapixels. 80 megapixels is 10,320 by 7752 pixels.

A wide spectrum camera is great news (although this one will probably set you back over £30 thousand) and a back like this can be used on bodies such as Mamiya (who own Leaf) or technical cameras and Leaf rightly point out that since you don't work with a viewfinder on a technical camera (you use a screen in place of the imaging plane) the built-in hires screen on the back will be very handy.

Thermal imaging role at end of Boston manhunt

The manhunt for the remaining Boston Marathon bomber ended when he was discovered hiding in a boat in a back yard. As this page from NBC's Photo Blog shows, the fugitive's body can clearly be seen even though he was underneath a kind of tarpaulin that was protecting the boat from the weather. There's (over compressed) movie (pity about the commercial) but, further down, a couple of hi-res stills.

A further story explains more about the thermal imaging and, eventually, explodes the myth that you can see outlines of people through walls using far infrared/thermal imaging ... despite what CSI would have us believe. You can however see through thin sheets of plastic, such as a bin liner, at these wavelengths which can not be imaged with a conventional camera.