Rangefinder Magazine
January 2006

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The Last Word Jacob Rushing
Digital Infrared

“Digital Infrared”

I WAS WORKING on a project with fellow photographer and friend, Clayton McDermott, when we stumbled onto this procedure. Under the instruction of Brooks Institute faculty member Rand Molnar, we were working with infrared film and experimenting with a variety of filters to achieve the most dramatic results. When McDermott suggested I try using the #87 infrared filter, a visually opaque filter, on my Nikon D70, I thought he was crazy. “I think you’ll be quite pleased with the results,” he said.

We were in Yosemite National Park at the time, overlooking Bridal Veil Falls. The #87 filter is designed to transmit infrared light rays while blocking the rest of the visible spectrum. The CCD of a digital camera is equipped with a filter to block infrared, but we found that with a long enough exposure time, enough light reaches the chip to create an amazing outcome. Because the #87 filter is a red filter, the resulting image must be converted to grayscale in post-production.

After discovering the technique, both McDermott and I have continued to use it time and time again, mostly for landscapes. This photo represents the first time that I’ve used the technique with a human subject in the shot.

It is said that humans are made up mostly of water and air, that biologically we are not all that different from our surroundings. This idea was on my mind when I created the shot. I knew I wanted to do the shot around sunset near Red Rock in the Santa Ynez Mountains, but I was waiting for the right weather at a time when my model was available. When we actually shot, I only had a onehour window and the location was a half-hour away. Needless to say, it was fast work once we got to the spot.

I needed the sun to light the model directly for the infrared effects to be apparent. The sun was quickly dropping behind the tall mountains. Keeping in mind that each exposure was about 30 seconds long, the model had to remain perfectly still in the frigid stream water. I got only two shots before the sun dropped behind the mountains, and it was time to pack up and head back.

I converted the image to grayscale using the Channel Mixer in Photoshop CS, and I added the clouds from a different image. Apart from a slight contrast adjustment, no other digital alterations were made.