The delicate curve and pattern of this palm branch and its sharp shadow that echoes on the ground drew me over to photograph this patch of ground. I chose to isolate these elements to emphasize the shapes I noticed.
Infrared photograph of a palmetto branch and its shadow at Naples Botanical Garden in southwest Florida. Infrared enables the use of high contrast and a single hue that stands out against black and white for an artistic interpretation of the scene.
When it came time to process this infrared photograph, I slid the hue for the foliage over to a hot orange. The hot orange against the white shelly gravel spoke to me about the heat of the tropics. It was a hot afternoon in sunny southwest Florida, the perfect time of day for a high contrast infrared capture.
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.
Infrared photography can really open your eyes and unleash your inner artist. There are so many ways to process an image that captures visible and invisible light above 590 nanometers, that the creative possibilities for rendering a simple scene can be inspiring. Let me explain.
When I go out to shoot Infrared photos, I look for simple compositions (less is more) with interesting shapes, strong contrast and often, a sky. For example, a an image that includes sunlit foliage against the sky will be high contrast. Walking around your familiar environment, you can find these elements. (A perfect COVID-safe activity!)
Sunlit palm tree against a clear sky at the Naples Botanical Garden, February 2021. My high-contrast black-and-white Infrared photographs are the most popular images, since black-and -white photography is fully accepted and widely appreciated. This image makes a dramatic large print.
When you begin to process at the computer, the fun begins. Using some special techniques, you can render the image in black and white, or blue and white, or blue and yellow, or blue and pink, for example. The possibilities are not exactly endless, as they are derived from manipulation of the red and cyan color channels, but there is lots of space for experimentation and expression of personal taste.
The body of work I have created with Infrared photography and creative processing at the Naples Botanical Garden gave me the idea of putting together a book that includes a variety of processing applications. When I share a single print, I get mixed reactions from people who don’t know what to make of this imaging style. I find myself explaining that black and white photography is “not reality,” but it is revered, and has been a part of our art culture for a hundred years. And consider this: fine art painters take liberties with colors, making choices express feelings and moods, rather than literal “photographic” reproduction. In contemporary art, painters have been freed from even a literal rendering of form when they paint in the abstract, right?
I find that most people don’t understand Infrared Photography, as it is uncommon. I am proud to be an Infrared pioneer, and I hope you will join me and enjoy it.
As a photographer, I’m always attracted to a scene that shows a path, because my mind questions, “Where will this path lead?” In this infrared photograph, the scene looks quite mysterious. A line of stepping stones provide a solitary path across a dark pond to a tiny Asian temple.
I feel a celebration of sunshine in the golden foliage and deep blue sky. The deliberate path to the little shrine is an invitation to personal meditation. How does this image speak to you?
Infrared photography shows stepping stones to a tiny temple in the Asian garden of the Naples Botanical Garden, February 2021.
After a month-long visit with the grandchildren, it’s time to get back to the photography, and I began yesterday with a midday walk on the beach. The sky was clear and blue, and the sunlight was strong — perfect conditions for Infrared Photography.
I like the way the sun gives the palms and the sky this nice contrast. I chose to process this “super color” image with the palms rendered in a golden yellow, even though they look green to the eye and with the rest of the image in high contrast black and white.
Mansion on the beach in Pelican Bay, Naples, Florida, rendered in “Super Color” Infrared with a Sony camera converted to Infrared by lifepixel.com.
I enjoy experimenting with Infrared Photography, because it’s a new way of looking at the world around us.
Walking through the Naples Botanical Garden, I realized that the plants are quite familiar to me, as I have walked the trails with my camera many times. This time, I was on the lookout for something new. At the edge of the water lily pond, I looked for some nice reflections and saw this tall palm tree looking quite a bit like an Impressionist painting.
Just two hours before sunset, the sun was low in the sky and the ripples in the water created the perfect filter. Today, Claude Monet was my inspiration.
This graceful palm frond reaches out and almost touches the Supermoon as it rises. Does this gesture remind you of another magic moment, in art history?
As the palm frond seems to reach toward the moon in this image, I am reminded of Michelangelo’s magic moment of creation on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Waiting for the Supermoon to rise into view this evening, I was driving a golf cart around the course, looking for the best location I could find. The official rising time of 5:26pm had passed, but I did not have a clear view of the flat horizon. Killing time, I clicked a few photos of a great blue heron.
Great blue heron just before sunset tonight in Naples, Florida.
I kept checking the alignment of my shadow, to make sure I was looking for the moon rising in the right location, and suddenly… there it was, and it DID indeed look big.
My first glimpse of the Supermoon, rising on January 30, just after 5:30pm as the sun set. It was both a blue moon and supermoon.
This was one of those moments that I wish a friend or family member was at my side to share the excitement. “There it is!” I murmured to myself.
The palm trees are pollinating in south Florida, and these bright red berries will be attracting insects, which will carry the pollen from the male to the female parts of the tree.
Mother Nature is hanging beautiful jewelry on this tall palm tree at the Naples Botanical Garden.
With my husband and photography friends having departed, I woke up on my own in Maui this morning, but my productive photography workshop with Gary Hart gave me a tip to start my morning in a unique way. On a rainy afternoon in Hana (on Maui) this week Gary shared his methods for moonlit, full moon, and star photography. Then, last evening I remembered that this morning was just one day after the best day of the month for shooting a moonset — still close enough to capture something. Yesterday would have been better, but it was cloudy in Hana. On the second morning after a full moon, the moon (waning but 97% full) will set two hours after sunrise, when the landscape will be gently lit to balance the light of the moon. AND, as fate would have it, my room at Napili Shores opens on the Pacific Ocean, facing west where I saw the sunset last night. I looked up the time of the sunrise and moonset on my Focalware app, and set my alarm. It would only take me five minutes to put my clothes on, grab my camera and set up my tripod outside.
About 30 minutes after sunrise, when the full moon was about 20 degrees above the horizon was my best opportunity for an image. I was able to frame the moon with the silhouette of a palm tree, and the sky would only get brighter in the next 30 minutes, making it harder to separate the brightness of the moon from the brighter sky.
I did venture down on the lava rocks by the ocean in an effort to capture the moon sinking into the ocean, but clouds got between us (the moon and me), and that view didn’t happen. (Daily reminder: Mother Nature does whatever she wants. Cooperation is not in Her vocabulary.) I did capture some other cool images that I will share in future blogs, though. A vivid rainbow appeared for a few fleeting moments, and I captured that. Stay tuned to this nature photography blog…now is great time to subscribe by entering your email address. I’m posting some other cool Maui and Hawaii images on Instagram. Follow me there at @cathykellyphotography.
Blog: Cathy Kelly Photography 