After reading a whole lot about infrared photography, and more about converting a camera body to shoot infrared, I was inspired. Rather than convert my only DSLR camera body to shoot infrared, I recalled seeing in Photoshop CS4 a tool to create an infrared from a regular color image.
I’ve posted in order an original color image of an Aspen tree, a normal high-contrast B&W, and the infrared. The differences between the B&W and IR are very subtle, but if you look closely, they are actually quite different.
The next shot is of the Indian Peaks shows more the effect IR photos have on a blue sky. All the variations of this one image have a different feel or atmosphere to them, which also shows the power of what can be done with digital photography. When I was shooting B&W film, I was shooting it mostly because I could create 8×10 enlargements almost for free, and at the time the artistic value was more or less lost on me. But one drawback was that they all had basically the same feel about them, a beautifully blue sky and vivid fall colors all fell to various grays, and it was very difficult to make a B&W print from a color negative, and have it look any way decent. But now I can shoot everything in color, even though I may be composing an image for B&W, and convert it later.
