Focus On Photography

OK all you focused photographers - time to grab your camera and start shooting. I did this past weekend, and it felt really good. Now all I need is time to see what I was able to capture.

I presently belong to several photographic meetup groups, and I highly recommend that you consider joining at least one in your area. Even if you’re like me and like to shoot on your own, the meetup group can inspire you to go to a specific place to shoot, and you have the opportunity to make new friends (doesn’t get better than that).

Of course, if you’re coming to New York City (or are in NYC) you can contact me to join my Foto Safari and sspend the day seeing neat places as you master new photographic techniques. Just go to http://www.mostcool.net to find out more.

The answer - infrared images. What you see when you first open a infrared image is a kind of red cast over the image. No problem - using either Lightroom (which I love), or Photoshop (or whatever else you use to edit), simple covert it to black and white. I normally go from Lightroom to Photoshop  to use the black and white layer adjustment to fine tune my image. However, I’ve just ordered Nik Silver Efex Pro which I saw demonstrated at B&H. It is ‘most cool’. So will probably use it from now on. Anyway, that’s it. To see some examples of IR photography just visit my site, mostcool.net. This link takes you directly to my IR images. Let me know what you think.

If you want to add color, I suggest making a duplicate layer first, then  converting one layer to color and the other to black and white. Use a mask on one of these layers and adjust to your hearts content.

There are a lot of interesting articles on infrared photography out there - just seek and you shall find. Most importantly - have fun!

Photography is all capturing about light. It’s up to you as to how you will capture this light and what you will do with it , once captured.

I love to capture infrared light. This is light the naked eye doesn’t see, but. trust me, it’s there. You need a special film that is sensitive to infrared, or a digital camera designed (or modified) to capture infrared photography.  And you should be able to see the image in your head, because you can’t see how the media you’re using is capturing this light. Here is an example of this. I took this photograph at a fair on Long Island, New York where they had hot air balloon demostrations going on.