Infrared Photography 

“The use of infrared is to see the unseen.”  The human eye cannot see infrared lights. At first, infrared photography was mainly used for World War I and World War II.  They were proved to be useful because they “showed the distinction between vegetation and camouflaged people and buildings.” During around the 30s and 40s filmmakers picked up the infrared technology its psychedelic effect. Also, the use of infrared photography expanded to forensic evidences to detect what the normal eyesight cannot see.

http://photographylife.com/introduction-to-infrared-photography

One way to create infrared photography is by using a special filter on a camera. How they work is they block out certain wavelengths of light.

http://photography.tutsplus.com/tutorials/an-in-depth-guide-to-infrared-photography-setup-and-capture--photo-9533

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111223125145AAV29I1

Another way the achieve the infrared effect is by using Photoshop. With Photoshop you can manipulate colours and mimic effects like infrared photography. There are tools in that program that are created to make an image like it is an original infrared photography work.

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/infrared-photo/

Finally, using a camera with infrared filter built inside is the easiest way. Like the special filter, the camera blocks out certain wavelengths of light and accepting other wavelengths.

http://www.ipi-infrared.com.au/start-here/how-do-infrared-cameras-work2

What I did to create the infrared photography was use Photoshop because I did not have the tools to create true infrared photography. I followed the tutorial and made it my own by using my own channel mixes rather than exactly as the tutorial said. I learned how much colour and darkness/lightness could be manipulated using the channel mixer. I also used my own capacity fill rather than what number the tutorial said to use. I experimented around seeing the effects of blending modes, which caused various changes.

Sources used for tutorial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDw0iy_FOgw

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/infrared-photo/

http://www.popphoto.com/how-to/2013/03/how-to-simulate-infrared-photography-using-photoshop

The process I used varied between the tutorial guidelines I followed. The easiest one was, by using a pre setup filter in the channel mixer settings and picking “black and white infrared.”

My theme focus was grass. As shown in my photos, there is a grasshopper, patch of grass, and the cleat cleaner brush outside for grass. I chose this theme because grass surrounds us and due to it being around us so much, we tend to ignore them. My goal was to get awareness to our everyday grass surroundings.