The following is an article by Steve Hoffmann of Hoffmann Photographer on the subject of Infrared Wedding Photography:
I was inspired to learn infrared wedding photography after seeing images in the book Infrared Wedding Photography by Patrick and Barbara Rice. As well, the infrared wedding images from Scott A Nelson are fantastic. Check them out – very inspiring! Basically, infrared photography is the process of capturing a spectrum of invisble light (near-infrared) and blocking out the visible spectrum of light. A great technical article can be found at Wikipedia. Typically this is done using a filter over the front of the lens or in front of the sensor (for digital capture).
Capturing infrared wedding images with film cameras is complicated. Using bracketing and screw-on filters one literally shoots ‘blind’ and sort of hopes for the best when you bring the film to the lab to have it processed. This is a ‘tough sell’ for wedding photography because we work under a huge time crunch! Screwing on and off filters to your lenses and setting up bracketing is a great waste of time. It’s like asking a sports photographer to change filters and bracket a shot in the middle of a game! Obviously you would would miss important shots!
There is sort of an evolution in infrared capture that happened for me. I’ll explain. . . . After I switched from film to digital capture the process for infrared wedding photography became one step easier. The opaque IR filter #87 was still required over the front of the lens (which means you are still shooting and focusing blindly) but you were able to see the result immediately on the back of the camera. This eliminated waiting for the proof sheets from the lab. A pretty big leap in a positive direction!
It wasn’t long before private companies began rebuilding old model digital cameras and putting the IR filter directly inside the camera in front of the sensor! Kapow!! The converted Nikon bodies (D1x, D50, D70) with the built-in IR filter have been the easiest and most effective way of capturing the near-infrared specturm. It gives the user the ability to COMPLETELY see through the lens, focus AND have immediate results on the back of the camera. Awesome!
Last year I had an old Nikon D1X camera converted for my infrared wedding photography. It is a little bit heavy compared to the converted D70 and newer models that are more recently available. You can see that the results are as great as film ever was for infrared and 100x easier and more time efficient.
BTW, the true infrared look can NOT be duplicated in Photoshop. As many times as I have seen a ‘recipe’ online for creating ‘realistic digital infrared’ through Photoshop, it has NEVER been even close. The most recent and popular of these recipes is the “In-Faux-Red” action from Totally Rad. You can tell right away that it truly is “faux.” The major reason for this is that infrared light reflects off of every single thing in your scene differently! How can you possibly accomodate for that in Photoshop? Check out this angel walking through the trees . . .
Infrared wedding photography takes a little bit of practice, but if you are already shooting in manual then you will catch on extremely quick. There are not many wedding photographers shooting in infrared so this is a great opportunity to create a small but effective selling point for potential clients.
Thank you for taking the time to learn with me. It is my hope that this article on infrared wedding photography will make you a better photographer.
Steve Hoffmann is a professional wedding photographer working out of Southern California. He has had articles and wedding features published in Inside Weddings magazine, Ceremony magazine, Celeb Life magazine and numerous online wedding industry blogs.
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