Sequence viewing > black & white film - processing Index - Resource - © Lloyd Godman

Infrared B&W negative film is often used in landscape and architecture. It gives the image a very strong graphic. This is how the skies turn such a dark black and the white clouds seem to jump out of the image. A give away with images where the film has been used is in foliage areas. Because foliage reflects infrared the film tends to make green trees very light in the images.You can get a variety of effects when using this film by placing various filters over the lens. 


Eastman Kodak have a long history and commitment to the manufacture and supply of a false colour infrared sensitive colour transparency film. Originally developed during the Second World War for camouflage detection the idea has survived over sixty years through various configurations and changes to Ektachrome processing (although periodically going out of production or being withdrawn).

Some workers believe that colour infrared film is more useful than black-and-white, since colour contrast is easier detected than grey-scale contrast and many publications testify to the usefulness of this film. Others find the false colour representation difficult to interpret - infrared yields a red image, green records as blue, and red as green. Chlorophyll in living plants reflects both green and infrared, and therefore appears magenta on this film. Many other subjects appear with characteristic colours such as melanin that records red-brown, arterial blood that reproduces green, cholesterol and collagen that reproduce blue and so on.

The image in the centre of this photogram/photograph composite from the Adze to Coda series was shot with Infrared film -

 

 

 

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