Running... Again?

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  If you know me you know there was a time about 10 years ago or so where I was running. A lot. At least 5 days a week and at least 5 miles a run. I wasn’t training, I wasn’t preparing for a race or a marathon. I just found myself enjoying the time spent running. I wasn’t obsessed with numbers, but I kept track of them all and liked seeing improvements in time and distances. It was good physical health and mental health. Then I tweaked my knee. Not bad enough that I couldn’t walk on it, just a tweak that told me I needed to back off of running for a little bit. So I decided on 2 weeks. At the end of 2 weeks I aborted a run very early as the pain was still there. 2 weeks became 3, became a month, became 5 years. 

Infrared Clouds

Clouds in infrared
Infrared Clouds
Every so often I'll look out my window and see a shot that works for X kind of processing or method, or kind. When I shot this a couple weeks ago I looked out my window and saw great big white clouds with a deep blue sky backdrop that I knew would work for some dramatic looks if shot in infrared. And I wasn't disappointed. Take a look at the RAW color, the in camera B&W conversion, and a quick HDR'd version and see for yourself:

Aperture Screenshot
RAW, In-camer B&W, and HDR'd
In each of the "natural light" versions above the clouds look flat and listless, nothing how I remember seeing them. It was almost as if the clouds overwhelmed the camera sensor. Looking over the shots from that day I remember being disappointed when I ran across the color RAWs and camera B&Ws  and was preparing for more disappointment when I got to the shots with the IR filter on. I like to try and take a number of shots in the natural light before putting the IR filter on just because it's annoying to screw on and off the filter. Lazy? Yes.

When I got to the orangish/reddish IR shots I knew I had something. I have given up on faux color IR conversions at this point with the 720nm filter, as I find the shots just not rich enough in color to make them interesting to view, but with a little work this filter and black & white work really well together. A little work in Black & White Effects and I got an image that I was really happy with.

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