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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Instagram Posts for the Week of Feb. 27

Image
I find that I post more freely on Instagram. Probably because I don't feel the need to come up with a substantial piece of writing to go with the photo. So I thought I'd try wrangling up my IG posts of the week into one post here on the blog. So without further adieu...
Read more

Burney Falls

Image
Burney Falls, in McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park, has been on the list of waterfalls to shoot from the second I discovered it. This made all my previous waterfalls look like little trickles. But shooting here exposed a number of issues with gear and timing and so I left with photos that I was pleased with, but not thrilled with. In fact, it has taken me about a month to come back to these photos, that's how disappointed I was with them.
Burney Falls is a unique waterfall in that it has the typical waterfall action of a river falling over a 129-foot cliff, but it also has underground springs coming out the side of the cliffs, which you can see off to the sides of the main fall. So the falls look like this pretty much year round, which is good when trying to plan a trip.

I had originally planned to shoot these falls in late fall/early winter of November 2017 on my Thanksgiving trip that ended in Lone Pine, CA. Due to time and weather issues, that was abandoned. At that tim…
Read more

The Golden Arches

Image
Thanksgiving saw me on a trip through the Eastern Sierras to visit some longtime family friends. Along the way were a lots of photography spots to choose from, but knowing this wasn't a photo vacation, I picked and chose a handful of spots I wanted to hit. Day 1 of travel had a stop at Burney Falls, a wonderful waterfall just north of Redding, CA before checking in at Reno. Day 1 was nothing but rain and hard rain, so Burney was pushed to something to check out on the way back. Day 2 started off bright, sunny, and promising. Sadly, Bodie State Historic Park, my hopeful stop for Day 2, was closed due to the road leading to the park being washed out. Lone Pine, CA was our final stop and where we'd be spending 3 days. I had 1 thing on the photo checklist for Lone Pine, Mobius, and it's nearby neighbor, Lathe Arch.

Read more