Infrared Goggles

I've posted about infrared photography before, but I'm going to do it again. I just love the effect. The contrast between light and dark presents the opportunity to create dreamy pictures.

On a bright sunny day with lots of "greenery" present, there is nothing I love more than popping a wide lens on my camera and shooting a scene with an infrared body. The greens wind up a creamy white in the final image. Some will claim that you can simulate any look with post processing. While I believe it is technically possible, I generally try to limit my time spent processing images. And quite frankly, I am not convinced the average Photoshop user can truly create infrared images that look as good as the real thing. As for film, I do believe that post processing can mimic the grain and overall look of film down to a level to a point where it would be indistinguishable from the real thing. Sorry purists, film is destined to go down the lonely path of records, 8 tracks, and cassette tapes, etc.

This last image is not an infrared one, but Sepia is another favorite color tone of mine. Technically, Sepia falls under the category of Black & White. In an ideal world, I think I would shoot 95% of my images in Black & White. And plus, I could simultaneously pay homage to Michael Jackson. Because as we all know, the natural progression from "it doesn't matter if you're black or white" is to embracing Black & White.

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One morning I woke up and discovered I was 31 years old.

I feel restless.

The oldest person in the world recently passed away. Born in 1896, she was 114 years old.

I wonder how this individual was able to process and adapt to all the changes in our world. Commercial production of automobiles only started in 1891. The Wright Brothers hadn't even flown their first airplane yet. The world may have very well been flat, because so many fundamental aspects of globalization, like travel and communication, were moving along at a crawl. At least the wit of Mark Twain was readily available for entertainment. Good writing is one thing that will always stand the test of time.

We usually think of the past in terms of what is missing. It's painted as a dark era that is lacking the modern comforts and technological advances of today. Can you believe people lived without this? What would you do without that?

However, if one really thinks about it, there must be things that we are missing. Things that we have lost along the way.