Shoot Some Infrared Portraits this Summer

Today’s Post by Joe Farace

In Mark Toal’s insightful post called “Infrared Portraiture? Why Not” he says, “Somewhere I read that Infrared photography is not good for portraits. Skin tones can look strange and eyes will be black was the usual reason given. By accident last week I found this is another rule that can be broken.” And I happen to wholeheartedly agree with him

And why not? In a recent post on our sister blog, “Best Subjects for Infrared Photography ” I mention portraits as a potential subject and say, “In my infrared photography book—see below— I show a few portraits but some think it adds a disturbing ‘Twilight’ (vampires ya’ know?) feel to the images because the subject’s eyes look a bit odd.” In fact, I once wrote an article about infrared photography for a magazine aimed at professional photographers and the editor rejected the section on portraiture and the image that I used, because she though the image was creepy. I leave it up for you to decide if she was right.

And that’s what infrared digital imaging is all about, having fun with photography no matter what subject you decide to photograph.

My book, The Complete Guide to Digital Infrared Photography is currently out-of-print but used copies are available from Amazon for under $15. Creative Digital Monochrome Effects has a chapter on IR photography and is available from Amazon with new copies under $6 and used copies for less than three bucks.