Infrared history and the big gap

I am researching into the history of infrared imaging for a paper in the RPS Portfolio TWO book. It's fascinating to realise just how big a craze there was for infrared (or infra-red) photography in the early 1930s. Ilford and Kodak had just produced stable infrared film that was reasonably fast and it could be easily bought by professionals and hobbyists alike.

The Times (of London) ran a occasional series of large infrared landscape and aerial photos between May 1932 and October 1938. It started with a view of the French coast as seen from Old Park in Dover and visited several parts of the UK before heading off, by air, to Burma and India. A key inclusion was an aerial photo of the Everest range taken by the Houston-Everest flight expedition. The distance visible in infrared photos was even more exciting to this audience than the dramatic foliage effects. The Times art critic waxed lyrical about the landscape photographs, saying that objects such as trees are "more full of detail than than they are in the ordinary photography". He likens them to the work of a draughtsman and in February 1933 referred to the photographer as an artist in the context of infrared.

A selection of photographs from the newspaper went on tour around the world, starting in Folkestone in December 1932, under the title Britain Illustrated and several of the infrared photos were included. Infrared photography was a wonder of the age in the 1930s.

The Times exhibition could have been the first major exhibition of infrared photos, except that it wasn't dedicated to them. That distinction probably goes to Invisible Light, organised by Robert Cartmell for the Smithsonian in 1980, which also travelled. Robert is noted for his photographs of roller-coasters and he took up infrared photography sometime in the 1970s and persuaded the Smithsonian to share his enthusiasm. Invisible Light was solely a contemporaneous collection whereas the RPS exhibition in October will have an historic element as well into which, recursively, Robert's exhibition now belongs.

However, what happened to infrared photography between Robert Williams Wood's photographs published in the Illustrated London News in June 1911 and those photographs from the 1930s? So far I have found no references to any. Was this really an infrared dark age? Ironically it wasn't dark for infrared television as John Logie Baird developed his Noctovision in 1926 and he, and others, were actively working on coupling an infrared searchlight to an infrared scope of some sort in order to detect ships and planes at a distance.

But my unanswered question is whether there are any infrared photographs existing from those years.

Clark, 'Photography by Infrared' available online

I have found that the second edition of Walter Clark's 'Photography by Infrared' is available online through archive.org.

This is the only academic-style book on the subject. It was first published in 1939 with a second edition in 1946 and a third (revised by Henry Louis Gibson) in 1978. This last edition went out of print in 1984. Clark and Gibson both worked for Kodak, with Gibson having a particular interest in medical photography.

The electronic copy has very clear text and line diagrams but rather poor reproduction of photographs. However, this is the best source of background on the technique, with copious references for further study, and the second edition is IMHO the best of the three. Text is searchable.

Link to the various versions is: www.archive.org

[Update June 30 2011: the version now seems to be rights-protected]

Infrared 100 on the BBC

The Viewfinder blog on the BBC web site features infrared photography today, with a copious quote from me. This, coupled with a recent press release from FLIR, should help raise awareness of the centenary and the technique. (It was even featured on the front page of the BBC News web site for a short while.)

The top of the page shows the double-page spread from the Illustrated London News in 1911 that was published to coincide with Wood's lecture at the Royal Institution and his appearance in the RPS 1911 exhibition. Besides a Kodak HIE shot of mine there is a great colour infrared image of Bob Dylan, taken in 1968 by Elliott Landy.

One interesting thing: Phil Coomes, who authors the blog, also includes an infrared photo of a space shuttle taking off. When you look closely you can see what appears to be the notorious infrared hot-spot right in the centre. This hot-spot is something that appears in digital infrared photographs, not film, and is 'best' seen with the lens stopped down and with something bright towards the centre of the shot. Not all lens/sensor combinations suffer from it, but most do. I have not seen any scientific analysis of the cause of this but it is a bane of digital infrared photography. 2010 must be the year that the hot spot is vanquished!

A Brace of Exhibitions

I've been sent info on two exhibitions featuring infrared photography, one on either side of the Atlantic.

To New York first ...
In a Different Light, with work by Theresa Airey, Susan Ruddick Bloom, Jill Enfield and Elizabeth Opalenik runs from today (Jan 28th) to Feb 27th at Umbrella Arts, 317 East 9th Street between 1st and 2nd Avenues. (I make that the East Village.) After today's launch the show is open Thursday to Saturday 1 to 6. Details on the Umbrella Arts web site. I am trying to persuade the ladies to make this exhibition an Infrared 100 event. How about it? [Later: see the first comment]

And thence to the UK ...
Simon Marsden will be showing some of his infrared photos of English gardens at Blenheim Palace from Feb 15th to March 28th. This is part of a group show with 10 photographers and only Simon uses infrared film. (Simon's web site.)

Fingerprinting and Infrared

John Smith from the University of Westminster will be presenting an Infrared 100 paper to the Fingerprint Society's annual conference, which will be held at University College London in April. The paper is called Infrared Photography’s 100th Birthday and, as John says ...

This presentation celebrates the pioneers of IR photography, whilst demonstrating some of the latest developments in this ever-more accessible area of fingerprint imaging.

More info (eventually) on the conference web site.