Back to Infrared Photography

My recent trip to New York City and Little Island inspired me to capture some new infrared images. Before I pull out the infrared-converted camera, I look for dynamic compositions that are simple and feature strong shapes. I also like to include both foliage and sky, if I can.

Looking from Manhattan’s Lower West Side toward New Jersey, I liked the composition framed by the concrete supports of Little Island and featuring the converging lines of the pilings in the Hudson.

I processed the Super Color image today to render the water in blue and the foliage in a golden yellow. What do you think?

From Little Island in Manhattan, looking across the Hudson River to New Jersey, an infrared Super Color image.

Frozen Beauty

As freezing temperatures grip the Northeast United States this week, we are reminded that a frozen landscape offers a new kind of beauty. The colorful palette of autumn leaves are nearly gone, and winter’s snow introduces a new aesthetic.

The Grand Tetons are draped in a blanket of fresh snow, while the valley underlines the scene with golden foliage. The Wyoming winter is approaching.

This image is one of 12 featured in Cathy Kelly’s 2022 Wyoming Nature calendar. There is still time to order one for the holidays. Email Cathy for details.

Blue Sky, White Jungle

Does a blue sky automatically lift your spirits? Do you feel more energetic and happy on sunny days? I do!

One of the cool features of “Super Color” Infrared Photography is the way you can combine a bright blue sky with a black and white image. The black/white portion of your image can emphasize texture and shape and feel a bit timeless, while a blue sky paints in the happiness.

As you step into this Tropical Jungle, you wade through long, thick grasses, but your sights are lifted to the palm tree silhouette in the distance. Naples Botanical Garden in Infrared Photography by Cathy Kelly, February 2021.

As you look at this photograph more closely, you will notice that the black/white jungle isn’t like a typical black and white photo. The foliage is white! This Sony camera captures infrared light, and one way to process the image is to convert the foliage to white. The result is kind of surreal, but I like it!

For best results, take your infrared photographs on a bright sunny day and make sure your subject is in the sun, not the shade.

Weekend Plans

What are your weekend plans? During COVID times, we need to choose an activity that is both safe and restorative. My husband and I are taking walks.

Depending on where you live and what climate you have, you might be walking in the snow, in the city, in the woods, the park or something else. What’s in your neighborhood? In Florida, we are often walking along the edge of a lake. In late afternoon, we find a walk in Nature to be restorative. Along the edge of the lake, we observe the colors and reflections of dusk.

Tranquil scene in the late afternoon as we walk around the lake in the Naples Botanical Garden in Naples Florida, January 2021.

Beauty of High Contrast

Having admired the landscape photography of Clyde Butcher, I love to create my own photographs of tropical Florida with high contrast. Infrared photography is one method to use in making high-contrast images.

This Infrared photograph emphasizes the texture of the spikes foreground shrubs, while contrasting a mostly monochrome scene with vivid blue of the lake and sky.

An Infrared photograph can be processed in many ways. It is the artist’s choice to use white, yellow or magenta for the green foliage, and to dial in a light or dark hue of blue or cyan in the sky and water. Of course, the image can also be rendered in pure black, white and midtowns. Does this recipe work for you?

Autumn in Sedona

Last year at this time, I was looking forward to a couple’s trip to Sedona, Arizona. While I have only been there four times in my life, Sedona is one of my favorite places. I just love to hike there and admire the ever-changing views of the sunlight on the red rock. Catching a glimpse of Oak Creek at the same time makes me feel even more serene and balanced.

Afternoon sunlight casts shadows on Cathedral Rock and softens the high desert shrubs. Sedona, AZ , November 2019.

I have included this image in my Landscape Photography calendar for 2021. These calendars will be available soon for holiday gift giving. Send me a message if you are interested in buying one, and I will reserve one for you.

Thinking in Black and White

I’m challenging myself with learning a new discipline in photography. The first step is having a digital mirrorless camera converted to capture infared light, and I’m learning about the techniques for capturing and processing these new types of images. But the camera won’t be back in my hands for a few weeks.

In the meantime, I was daydreaming about the places I would love to photograph with the infared camera — like the Florida Everglades and Joshua Tree National Park in southern California. With the limitations on travel during the pandemic, those excursions will come to pass down the road.

The scenery of Joshua Tree is fresh in my mind, since I visited the park in 2018. I decided to process one of my color photographs in black and white, as a first step in my journey to see in black and white. What do you think?

I love the bold silhouettes as well as the textures in the Joshua Trees found in the high desert of California. A monochrome image makes the image more about shapes, textures and contrast, as it subtracts color. Processed in Adobe Camera Raw and Nik’s Silver Efex Pro.

Spanish Moss at Sunset

I remember the first time I saw Spanish Moss on my first trip to Florida. I think I was in seventh grade, and I was amazed. It looks kind of spooky hanging from the trees.

Spanish moss lit by the setting sun in Naples, Florida. If you grew up in the northern states, this sight will surprise you.

My delighted first impression still colors my thoughts when I observe this lacy plant hanging from tree branches. I especially like to see it in early morning or evening light when it looks like a chandelier.

Crystal trees in Jackson Hole

As we begin another week in Southwest Florida of temperatures around 90 degrees Fahrenheit and a heat index around 100, I’m thinking back on a bitter cold morning in Jackson Hole when my fingertips and toes were frozen.

Venturing through Grand Teton National Park with two other photographers, we spotted elk, bison, eagles, trumpeter swans, big horn sheep and a coyote during the day. We also admired the shapes in the snow-covered landscape.

Hoarfrost coats the branches and leaves of this enormous bush in Jackson Hole, WY, February 2020.

A visual treat of the early morning light was the hoarfrost on the trees along the creek. Rising water vapor coated branches and froze overnight. Before the midday sun melted the ice, we were able to capture some photographs of these crystalline trees.

Hoarfrost makes the trees look crystalline in early morning light, Jackson Hole, WY, 2020. Zoom in to see the branches in detail.

Can I walk on this lake?

Gazing at the clarity of the rocks under water and the clarity of the reflection on the lake, I’m not sure what would happen if I stepped into this lake… Would my sneakers get wet as I balanced and slid on those round rocks? Or is the lake surface really reflective glass that would allow me to walk across?

Jasper Park Lodge sits unnoticed on the far side of this mirror lake in Alberta, Canada.

I have to give my husband Charlie all the credit for suggesting that we walk a few miles back from the town of Jasper to the Jasper Park Lodge. We approached the Lodge along the lake and golf course on a perfect September afternoon.