Because Ken Complained... **

 

Heer iz px

 

Just finished these today.

Happy, Ken?

(Mike'll be happy, too, because, flowers and infrared? They're his two favorite kinds of photographs, y'know?)

(Just sayin...)

 All the rest of you? I have no idea. You can love'em, you can hate'em, you can be bored stiff. It's entirely up to you. I can take it. My artist's ego is damn near bulletproof.

 

(**in response to a comment yesterday by Ken Tanaka under Andrew's column)

Ctein, TOP Technical Editor
(who is posting on-and-off while Mike's nomadic)

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Comments

[Glenn Brown]

Heer iz px ???? spell check broken.

[Ctein replies: Yeah, Glenn, pretty much. It thinks "iz" should be spelled "izz." How wrong is that!]

[John]

I'd say "like".

[Mike Johnston]

Very nice.

[Ctein replies: I'm going to make a convert of you yet.]

[MikeR]

Longwood Gardens, Kenneth Square, PA??

[Andrew Molitor]

Is that Como Park? I can totally see some very angry fairies in there.

[Ctein replies: Andrew, you got it. Como Park Conservatory, St. Paul, MN.

Note to civic-minded people - St. Paul still keeps the Como Park Conservatory and Zoo (they're adjacent) free to the public. It happily accepts donations, which I always make, but there is no admission charge. Is that great, or what!

Uh, Andrew? Not the F-word, not ever the F-word. They are our Good Neighbors, now and always.

[Andrew R]

Love the image of the inside of the conservatory. The IR tones and the interplay of light and shadow work together beautifully.

[Ken Tanaka]

Happy!

[Ctein replies: Because we live to serve. ]

[Paul]

I loath infrared and flowers aren't my favourite photographic subject either. But these two images are brilliant. Especially the first one. I love the chiaroscuro light.

[igor]

"bulletproof"?

Nice snowscape that 1st one! But I would colour Peggy red to make it even nicer.

[Ctein replies: Harking back to that ancient National Geographic rule, right? Hey, if it was good enough for NG...

[Geoff Wittig]

I've dabbled in infra-red photography and have an old D-SLR that was converted by the very nice folks at Life-Pixel. The look obviously doesn't appeal to everyone. To me its biggest appeal is perceptual: by providing a glimpse of what lies just beyond the tiny little sliver of E-M spectrum human eyes can perceive, it reminds me just how subjective and constrained our view of the universe really is. Almost makes me look forward to cataract surgery some day, because people can see deeper into the U-V range when the eye's lens is removed.

[Ctein replies: LifePixel are the folks who converted my Olympus Stylus EP1. I'm very happy with the work.

[Jim Allen]

I like infrared so much I had my 5D Mk II converted. Now I just need a little less rain and a little more sun to get it out and put it to use. I started out doing my own conversion on an old Canon P&S camera, then bought a converted digital Rebel on eBay, then dove into the deep end with my #2 most expensive camera purchase ever. I may never become a master, but I've got a financial commitment. Keep 'em coming!

[Mathew Hargreaves]

The detail in the flower is lovely. As IR sees through haze it is also excellent for long distance images. It makes for both interesting color and b&w work. I love both when it all comes together right. Shadows can be problems. When they fall over your subject(s) they can ruin the image. Some family shots were lost to tree leaf shadows.

[LeftCoastKenny]

I guess I'm a lone voice in the wilderness regarding the top image. I don't care for it. There was so much play in light & shadow I found it difficult to look at until I found the reclined figure. Having found her, the busyness of the rest of the image imposed a restlessness on it I found distracting.

Loved the close up of the flower at bottom though. I'm a sucker for flowers...

[Ben Shugart]

What, no IR shots of women in low earrings and high heels? Or cats.

[Roger Bradbury]

Dammit, I bet there's a huge amount of detail in the original version of that conservatory photo that I just can't see here. (Sigh) Oh well.

[Kathy]

The flower is just beautiful, IMO. I'd like to ask: how does one learn to print? I have an old Epson 2200. Depending on how I muck around with the profiles, whatever a profile is, everything turns out pink or green. Makes my head hurt. Is there a book? Thank you.

[Geoff Wittig]

Kathy-
There are several decent books on digital printing that can walk you through the process of making a good inkjet print. My favorite is Jeff Schewe's 'The Digital Print', which is both thorough and very well written in Schewe's entertaining voice. Uwe Steinmuller's 'Fine Art Printing for Photographers' is also very thorough, but not as well organized or concise. Rob Sheppard's book is not as complete or detailed.

[Oskar Ojala]

You left out the technical details, namely the camera, lens, filtration and post processing. I'm interested since there seems to be small differences in IR rendition between cameras and the tones on the flower play out very nicely, so I'm curious about the details.

[Ctein replies: Well, Oskar, the make and model are mentioned in the comments. But, really, the information is not of much use because the photograph is very heavily adjusted in Photoshop to get the tones to come out right. It's far from the camera file and I don't keep notes on what I do. Sorry I can't be more helpful. ]