Photography in the month of February

The month of February has been darned cold, wait, I think uncomfortably cold is a better word choice. Despite that, I have spent a lot of my time out walking around.

The days have been bright, painfully bright for me in fact. I have been experiencing a new and colourful world this month.  For the last few years everything I saw has had a warm brown tinge, colours were not brilliant, shadows lacked detail, and it was never very bright.  Even the correct calibration on my computer’s display always looked dim.

Two weeks ago I had my final cataract surgery. (That’s both eyes now) and the world is bright and colourful, and I can’t get enough of it.   My camera’s new storage location is on my kitchen table to be always ready when I want to rush outside. I must admit that many of my photos in the last couple weeks are of nothing more than shadows or colours along the road that I didn’t see before, but I am having fun. 

This past week my friend Jo called and said she had to go to the small town of Falkland and asked if I wanted to get my IR camera and go with her.  The day was cloudless, sunny, very cold and, of course, perfect for photography. 

Fortunately she wasn’t in a hurry, because I kept making her stop so I could photograph everything. Its not that I haven’t taken that forty-plus-minute drive to Falkland a thousand times before in all kind of weather. But I had forgotten how colourful it was.

We stopped to photograph at a quiet roadside church in Westwold, a small community that borders the road along the way.   It was the middle of the week and the snow on the pathway wasn’t even disturbed. I think churches are struggling with the pandemic lockdown.

The church was an excellent subject. Although not very distinctive with it’s non-descript wooden walls. But there are trees near it and hills in the background and I wanted to work with the IR to get strong contrast, luminous trees, a black sky and the white window edging and stark white cross would glow with the reflecting infrared conversion.

That was in the late morning. We continued on to Falkland so Jo could talk with a dog breeder for her Mastiff and I had plenty of time to wander through the trees along a frozen stream.

Before we returned we stopped at the Falkland Pub for a late lunch. I have never been in that place before, its parking lot is usually full of pickup trucks in the winter and any day in the summer one will carefully need to wind their way through rows of Harley Davidsons. But on this day there was only one car and when we went in the human total was only seven including the waitress (That’s a sign of the times I guess) Nevertheless, it was a welcoming place with music and the lunch with beer was good.

The afternoon light had changed and we stopped again at the Westwold church. There were a few more shadows and a slight breeze. Brrr…I didn’t stay for long.

Never mind the cold, the weather will change again soon and all of us that like wandering with our cameras will continue to have fun photographing the changes that happen.

I’m being forced to finish this article. My two cats that are normally running around outside are not very pleased with the drop in temperature and have been staying in the house. Now, at the end of the day they are full of energy and have decided a good place to play is between my computer display and me and after all the running and jumping outbursts are stopping to sit on the keyboard and demand attention.

Infrared photography moves a photographer far from the usual.

                                                

  

Sometimes it is necessary for me to get away from doing the usual things. My time as a photographer is spent being precise. I meter for the light and shadow, striving for the best possible exposure, and not much is left to chance.

On the Easter weekend I spent a day photographing a family Christening. My job was to take a creative approach to photographing that religious occasion and telling the family’s story. At an event such as a Christening nothing waits for the photographer and there is no time to correct omissions or mistakes.

The main rule for me was to keep out of everyone’s way, not to become a focal point of attention, and never to miss any thing that happens.

The next morning as I sat at my computer working on the post-production photo editing of the Christening my wife mentioned she would like to finish off the roll of film she had been saving for a sunny day. It didn’t take much convincing to ignore the day’s “to do” list and as I looked out at the clear blue sky I realized I needed something to take off the stress I had been feeling.

There is nothing quite like infrared photography. It is always an exploration when I use the well-worn Nikon D100 that I had modified many years ago to only “see” infrared light.

Vegetation appears white or near white. Black surfaces can appear gray or almost white depending on the angle of reflected light, and if photographed from the right direction the sky becomes black. The bluer the sky, the more the chance there is for an unworldly, surreal effect. And white surfaces can glow with a brightness that illuminates the sky.

I have written about infrared before, but for those that are new to this subject here is the gist of it.

Digital camera sensors are as sensitive to infrared light as to visible light. In order to stop infrared light from contaminating images manufacturers place what they call “a hot filter” in front of the sensor to block the infrared part of the spectrum and still allow the visible light to pass through. My infrared modified D100 has had that filter removed and replaced with a custom filter that allows for infrared only.

My wife wanted to visit a marshy area not far from our home that on wet years fills up with water, and is annually visited by birds, ducks, and geese. But this year’s early dry spring has not given the marsh much water, and when I walked up to the dam two ducks quacked loudly and flew away, and that was the only wildlife sighting for the day.

The back roads always have something to photograph, so we moved on and chose our subjects depending on the light. Linda was shooting with her old medium format 1950’s Ikoflex and was looking for interesting features like fallen trees and rock formations. That particular old film camera doesn’t have an automatic mode, or an in camera meter and requires a hand held light meter. I am sure the few passers by wondered at a woman standing roadside with a boxy thing hanging from her neck while she peered at something in her outstretched hand.

I just explored, and unlike Linda’s limited, 12 exposure roll of film, I had an almost endless supply of digital choice, and besides, infrared changes the way we see things. So I pointed my camera at anything that caught my eye.

I began this discussion with the words, “I spend my time being precise.” And “Not much is left to chance.” However, not so much with infrared. I only use the meter as a not-so-precise guide, and don’t worry about much else. I do try for interesting angles of the subjects I photograph, but sometimes I am in for a surprise when I bring the images up on my monitor.

Shooting infrared is always an exploration, a discovery and moves a photographer far from the usual.

I look forward to all comments. Thanks, John