In my friend Mark Toal’s blog post, “Infrared Portraiture? Why Not” he says, “Somewhere I read that Infrared photography is not good for portraits. Skin tones can look strange and eyes will be black was the usual reason given. By accident last week I found this is another rule that can be broken”
And why not? In my post “Best Subjects for Infrared Photography” I mention portraits and say, “In my infrared photography book, I show a few portraits but some think it adds a disturbing ‘Twilight’ (vampires ya’ know?) feel to the images because the subject’s eyes look a bit odd.”
In fact, I once wrote an article about infrared photography for a magazine aimed at professional photographers and the editor rejected the section on portraiture and the image I used, featured at left, because she though the image was creepy. I leave it up for you to decide if she was right.
In the image featured above top, the subject was photographed outdoors in prime time for infrared photography—between noon and 1:00PM. She was photographed with a Canon EOS 50 converted to infrared by LifePixel. Lens was the no-longer-produced 22-55mm lens (at 52mm) with an exposure of 1/400 sec at f/13 and ISO 400.
And that’s what infrared digital imaging is all about, having fun with photography no matter what subject you decide to photograph.
I’ve found that Life Pixel do a great job with IR conversions. You can get $50 OFF with Priority Processing Upgrade by using coupon code: joefarace50-FrQ Don’t miss out on this soon to expire offer, order your conversion today!
