Barnaby Attwell infrareds in Falmouth exhibition

Having recently discovered Barnaby Atwell's faux-colour infrared shots of Cornish landscapes I was delighted to find that he has some included in a new seasonal exhibition in Falmouth.

The exhibition is called Unfamiliar Territory and is on at the Falmouth Art Gallery until June 1st.

The exhibition press release describes the event ...

Unfamiliar Territory is a stunning new exhibition opening this February at Falmouth Art Gallery that will explore a range of themes linked to the Cornish landscape. It brings together an exciting selection of 20th and 21st century artists who have been inspired by Cornwall’s diverse landscapes to create works that show it in innovative ways and explores how Cornwall’s iconic landscapes have evolved over the years.

The exhibition runs from the 11th February to 1st June 2023 and will feature nationally renowned artists such as: John Tunnard, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Kurt Jackson, Danny Markey, Tom Cross, Patrick Heron, Albert Reuss, Bryan Wynter and more.

... and Barnaby adds that the gallery shop will be selling copies of his excellent book, Welcome to St Decay, as well as prints and postcards.

The web site for the exhibition is at www.falmouthartgallery.com/Exhibitions/2023/1846~Unfamiliar_Territory and Barnaby's blog post about it is at www.barnflakes.com/blog/unfamiliar-territory-press-release-and-private-view.

[Photo courtesy of Barnaby Atwell]

Second Band volume coming from Elliott Landy

Almost exactly nine years ago I wrote about Elliott Landy's Kickstarter project to produce a book of his photographs of The Band, that bunch of Candian musicans who also,famously, backed Bob Dylan for a while. [Read the original post.]

That volume contained 200 photos chosen from the thousands that Elliott shot while in their company. Choosing a set is a difficult task, and lots of great shots are always left behind. So he has decided that it's time for a Volume Two! And he makes these pages because Elliott Landy included infrared film in his toolkit and, just as there were some IR shots in the first book, there will be some infrared images in the new one; shot using 35mm Infrared Ektachrome.

Here's one of the infrared images from the first book to whet your appetite ...

You should visit the Kickstarter page of course, and decide whether you want to join in.

A few Infrared Photographers

It's always nice to come across other photographers who either specialise in infrared or who take the odd very good shot. So here are a few:

Kate Ballis is based in Melboutne and has a neat line in faux-colour digital images. As her online biog says "In her Infra Realism series, Kate creates unique, colour-drenched images using infrared technology." She took an IR-converted camera and experimented with filters to produce dramatic images.

Also doing interesting things with digital colour is Barnaby Attwell ... aka Barnflakes. He's based in Cornwall and published a thin volume of colour infrareds of Conrnish landscapes. His palette is different to Kate's, which demonstrates the variety of results you can get with digital infrared. I also added his book to the Invisible Light Bibliography.

More 'conventional' digital mono infrareds can be found with Pauline Rook. I came across her photographs in a craft gallery in Wells and find that her aesthetic is similar to mine (though I think her eye is better). Her web site, includes IR images shot in Africa as well as closer to home.

A final single image from Richard Mosse. Lately he's been shooting with thermal cameras but I was interested to come across a single shot of his in The Guardian newspaper recently. It's called The Amazon’s highway through hell (I think) and, very unusually, was shot using an 8 by 10 inch sheet of the legendary Kodak HIE film. To quote Oliver Cromwell, you can see the image 'warts and all' on the page but it's a great shot.

More Near-IR cameras from FujiFilm

For a while I have used a near-infrared camera made by FujiFilm called the FinePix IS Pro. This is based on the FinePix S5 Pro, which is in turn based on the Nikon D200 which, for me was useful as I have some Nikkor lenses that fit. (Recently I have been using a converted compact camera, simply because it is convenient, but the Fuji is more versatile. An example shot from Cordoba is above.) It has no blocking filter so you can use any filter combination you want and in my case that included a yellow filter for false-colour IR tests (not 100% satisfactory) and trying a variety of filtration methods. [See this blog post on the subject.]

I had thought that this camera was an experiment that Fuji wouldn't repest but it turns out I was wrong as I came across their X-T1 IR camera. This was first introduced in August 2015, which shows how on the ball I was, or how secretive Fuju are about this device. At 16 megapixels it isn't really up to current specs of course but, based on their web site, it is currently available. Fuji are marketing it carefully to "technical experts, law enforcement, medical research and scientific communities" and I would assume the EULA places restrictions on use as with the IS Pro. In theory the usage can include Fine Art.

So this isn't enough to make me want one, but it does indicate that there is a small market for out-of-the-box IR cameras as well as conversions.

The FujiFIlm web page for this camera is at www.fujifilm.com/us/en/consumer/digitalcameras/ir-camera which is interesting as it's in the 'consumer' web space even if the camera's market isn't.

I wonder what else I'm missing.

Well, the FUJIFILM GFX100 IR (Infrared) Large Format Mirrorless Digital Camera for a start. No complaints about resolution here because this chap weighs in at 100 megapixels (and maybe even 400!) and has up-to-date features such as 5-axis stabilisation. In this case Fuji say that this camera "will not be made available to general photographers or customers for personal use" and was launched at the end of 2020. Unlike their other IR cameras this one doesn't respond to UV as well.

Web page is www.fujifilm.com/us/en/news/digital-cameras/fujifilm-introduces-GFX100IR-infrared-camera and fujifilm-x.com/global/special/gfx-ir-camera/.) I found retailers offering this by doing a web search but at a list of over £11 thousand I think I will have to pass.

Professor Wood's House

I was delighted to receive an email recently from someone with a personal connection to the house that Professor Wood lived in.

I knew the building was in East Hampton, and I knew the road as it was noted on his letterhead. But try as I might I was unable to pin the building down based on the two photographs I have of it. This one was the one published in the Century Magazine in the Midwinter Number of the Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, published in February 1910 and was (as far as I know) the first infrared photograph to be published.

From my new contact I now know exactly which house it is. I'm told the building has been modified, which you'd expect after a century or more, but essentially what you can see in this photo (and the one in this earlier blog post) remains the same. The driveway from the road has changed, which is why I couldn't track it down with Google's Street View.

I hope to get a photo of the house as it is now so we can compare. I will let you know.