Your veins are the key

Given that near infrared can penetrate a little way into skin, there are an increasing number of interesting applications that exploit that. I noted a medical system for locating veins last November.

Now a Swiss company is demonstrating a sensor that uses NIR to scan the pattern of veins on your wrist, which are apparently unique to you, to use as a biometric key. There's more on the BIOWATCH web site and also in a news item on the BBC web site.

After recent problems that Apple's watch infrared sensor found with tattoos, it'd be interesting to know whether they'd cause a problem for this sensor. Presumably unless there's total coverage, there will still be some vein pattern to use. I assume there's a patent and a quick search throws up some interesting examples, such as US 6799726 B2 from 2000, which uses near-field radio in a wrist-watch to access ski lifts, and WO 1988004153 A1 from 1987, which concerns biometric sensing. As this latter patent points out, often this requires a user to carry out a special action, such as looking into something or placing a hand on something. With the advent of sensors small enough to fit onto a wristwatch strap, the sensing can be genuinely unobtrusive.

Ed Thompson @ Photo-Forum

Ed Thompson will be talking about his series of colour infrared photographs - Unseen - at a Photo-Forum event in London on May 14th. His talk is alongside one by Lewis Bush, another photographer with an unique vision.

I wrote about Unseen last month: here and here.

The Photo-Forum event is being held at Calumet in Drummond Street, starting at 1800, and you can find out more on the Photo-Forum web page.

[Always happy to help promote exhibitions and talks involving infrared imaging: just drop me a line]

Laurie Klein @ B&H Optic Conference

Laurie Klein, whose excellent book Photographing the Female Form with Digital Infrared I reviewed in November, will be giving a talk on infrared landscape photography at the Optic 2015 Conference early next week. The event, in locations in New York city near to the B&H store, runs from Sunday May 3rd to Tuesday May 5th.

Laurie's presentation is at 11 in the morning on Monday May 4th and takes place in the Orion Room at AMC Loews 34th St Theater (4th Floor). AMC Loew's is on 312 W 34th St between 8th and 9th Avenue. The event is free but you are encouraged to register. Here's the link to the page for Laurie's presentation.

More on Ed Thompson 'Unseen'

I made it over to Bethnal Green yesterday to see Ed Thompson's 'Unseen' exhibition and, as I expected, found the images fascinating. There are only two days left but I do recommend that you get over to the Four Corners Gallery if you can. Ed very kindly gave me a print, and we chatted. I was impressed that he made such good use of this difficult film stock ... even more so since he found that he didn't need to bracket.

One thing that struck me was the silvery skin tone in the Vein series. I've been trying to figure out what might cause it: the illumination was flash and the images are almost always straight what was recorded on the film. I'll leave you with my favourite out of the Vein shots and a final note that Ed plans a book sometime soon. Details yet to be announced.

Ed Thompson 'Unseen' infrared photos in London

Documentary photographer and lecturer Ed Thompson has started an exhibition of colour infrared photographs at Four Corners Gallery in east London. It's called The Unseen and is a compendium of medium format Aerochrome shots taken for several earlier projects.

The photographs cover landscapes, medical imagery and aerial photography, in some cases echoing the original intended usage for the film, which was better known in its Infrared Ektachrome incarnation.

The exhibition runs until April 18th.

Like Richard Mosse, Ed Thompson's use of medium format Aerochrome film is a dying gasp for the medium. I doubt if there's much stock left now, and although it is possible to mimic the film's effect with a digital camera, the results (at least by me) are nowhere near as dramatic as 'the real thing'.