Peace in the forest and with the wild things

Infrared Light

Inspired by the work of friends and fellow photographers, John Allen Poppleton, and Barry Parsons, I recently had the sensor in one of my cameras converted to infrared.  I began making both landscape and portraiture images, and immediately fell in love with the surreal look and feel, that infrared light creates!  

Because of the surreal and almost fantasy look of the infrared portraits, I decided to try my hand at making the model a forest fairy.   First I needed wings.  I didn't want digital wings, so I set out to find real ones.  Found!  With a long set of tweezers I began carefully gathering wings from the bugs that had met their fate in the front grill of my truck. As my husband walks by, he just smiles and shakes his head. He has been with me long enough, that he doesn't even ask me what I'm up to anymore.  After finding just the right wings, I put them on a piece of white paper and photographed them.  In photoshop, I then inverted the image to make the wings white and the background black.  With layering, blending, and a little fairy glow, my enchanted forest fairy came to life.    

I entered the Brigham City Plein Air competition and exhibit with this infrared image of one of my favorite trees.  I was so pleased to have been awarded first place in photography with this image!
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I have found a new and exciting avenue in my photography.  I look forward to making more images with this beautiful light.