A hundred years of infrared photography

A hundred years ago, the first infrared photo was published in the Journal of the Royal Photographic Society. To say that the world hasn’t been the same since is a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s certainly looked a bit trippier since.  Like so many things,  once the purvey of the rich and dedicated, IR photography is almost trivial now. Your camera sensor is already sensetive to IR light, if less so than visible light. So all you have to do to take an infrared shot is filter out the actual, visible colors. I guess it goes without saying that there are filters for that. Once you filter out the visible spectrum and you dial up (way up) the exposure time, what you get is a glimpse into a world that looks almost, but not quite, just like our own world.

Even if you don’t have a camera that takes filters, you can play around with IR photography yourself. All it takes is about four layers of Congo Blue and 30 seconds or so of exposure in full daylight. And a tripod. Trial and error may be involved.

(Photo via Wikipedia)