Photo Gallery: Black and white infrared film
Primrose Hill - The Fish-Eye Tree
Primrose Hill is one of the high vantage points just to the north of central London. From here you can look across Regents Park and the Zoo towards the Telecom Tower and the City to the south-east. I was experimenting with a cheap fish-eye attachment that went on the front of a 28mm lens and this was one of the results. Someone very kindly said this made them look a trees in a totally different way. Certainly the contrast between the dark branches and the bright leaves is accentuated by the fish-eye distortion, which seems to suck the centre of the tree outwards.
Kinderdijk Windmill
Kinderdijk is near Rotterdam in the Netherlands. It is a world heritage site with 19 well-preserved windmills (including one which almost burned down a few years ago). The mills drain water from the Alblasserwaard polders which lie below sea level - this is the Low Countries after all.
The scene of these mills on the banks of the canal-like polders presents a wonderful photo opportunity, helped for me by a fine day with clear skies.
Most of the windmills, including this one, are lived in. What is most surprising, for a Brit like me, is the sheer power of the sails as they turn. Believe me ... there is nothing peaceful about a windmill sail close-to.
Buçaco Angel
Look closely to the left of the photo and you will see the angel. This large statue adorns the outside of the Buçaco Palace Hotel in central Portugal. It was built as a royal hunting lodge about a century ago and is elaborate in its decoration as befits its royal pretentions. When we visited it was a luxury hotel with an excellent wine cellar.
Lulworth Graveyard
Infrared film used to be used in the movie industry to make a daytime scene look as if it had been shot at night. That's the effect here. This shot through the gates of Lulworth graveyard was actually taken around noon.
Narrow Boat Moored on the Godalming Navigation
Shot on Konica infrared film, which has less grain and more contrast than the Kodak, this is one of a small group of photos taken on a sunny summer day along the River Wey/Godalming Navigation in Surrey. The sky was near perfect with scatered clouds which stand out strongly. The Godalming Navigation was one of the first canals cut in England and is no longer a place of commerce but one of leisure.
Invisible Light
I always wanted to take an infrared photo inside a tunnel of trees. We get trees growing either side of country lanes that grow so close they arch over the road. The lane is in Shropshire just a half mile from a very busy trunk road, leading off into the farm land beyond. When I had taken the photo I looked around to find a car behind me (I was in the middle of the road) patiently waiting for me to finish. I hadn't heard the car draw up.
The negative was very over-exposed, resulting in the extreme 'infrared' look here. This was our first infrared Christmas card, and the one that bore the name Invisible Light. Also briefly on sale in the Post Office in Primrose Hill.
Car in Varadero, Cuba
Old American cars are everywhere in Cuba, in various states of repair but some in amazing condition. Varadero was the only place in Cuba where I took infrareds (unfortunately ... due to the practicalities of only having one camera) and I came across this just off the main drag.
Hermitage of St John of the Desert
The Buçaco Palace Hotel in Portugal is built in a forest that used to be the sole preserve of a group of monks. In 1628 the Barefoot Carmelite monks built a convent and surrounded the forest with a wall. Women were forbidden to enter by order of the Pope. When a monk wanted to be even more alone he would take himself off to one of the hermitages scattered among the trees and these steps lead up to one of those deserted refuges. The place is called the Ermida de São João do Deserto and if you look very carefully you might just see a ghostly figure rising from the gateway.