Louise Porter | Infrared Tribal

Photo © Louise Porter | All Rights Reserved

Infrared photography is a different technique that will appeal to those of us who have an adventurous streak, and seek to present an alternative vision to their audience. Infrared photography provides a new way to see what we like to photograph because our eyes cannot see infrared light as it is beyond the "visible" spectrum that humans can detect.

Using digital cameras modified to shoot infrared reveals photographs that are different from what we are used to see. Everything is different; colors, skies, clouds, faces, textures, and skin to mention just a few. The infrared "look" cannot be duplicated with post-processing software despite filters and techniques. Some photographers have converted their digital cameras by having the sensor's infrared blocking filter removed, and substituted with one that allows only infrared light to pass through.

One of those photographers is Louise Porter, whose infrared galleries Infrared Tribal Travel and Infrared Niger are lovely examples of this techniques. Readers of this blog post might be tempted to try this style of photography after viewing them.

Photo © Louise Porter | All Rights Reserved

Louise Porter has been a documentary and travel photographer for over 20 years. She trained at New York'sWorld Photography International Center of Photography, and has traveled to Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam, India, Laos, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Bhutan, Ladakh, Iceland, Cuba, Barbados, Ireland, Bali, Sulawasi, UK and other European countries. Her work was included twice in the 2013 and 2014 SONY World Photography top 10 short list for People along with another selected infrared photo in the Commended category.

Terri Gold | The Nomads of Niger

Photo © Terri Gold-All Rights Reserved

Infrared photography and off-the-beaten path nomadic people...this is exactly what photographer Terri Gold features in her new Nomads in Niger gallery.

She photographed the Wodaabe; nomadic cattle-herders and traders in the Sahel, who periodically migrate from southern Niger, through northern Nigeria, northeastern Cameroon, southwestern Chad, and the western region of the Central African Republic. The number of Wodaabe is estimated to be 100,000 and are widely known for their beauty, elaborate attire and rich cultural ceremonies.

Terri tells me there has been no tourism in Niger for 6 years now, and her photography group numbered less than five. The Wodaabe festival she attended had no fixed date, so it was a matter of crossing fingers and being patient. Her group had to have 18 guards armed with Kalashnikovs and a 50 mm machine gun on each truck. 

The Guérewol festival is an annual courtship ritual competition among the Wodaabes, when young men dressed in elaborate ornamentation and made up in traditional face painting gather in lines to dance and sing, vying for the attentions of marriageable young women.

Terri Gold is an award-winning photographer and artist based in New York City, and has built an impressive reputation for her infrared imagery of rituals, rites of passage, festivals, celebrations and portraits from all over the world.

Her artistic creativity and energy were patently obvious during my Tribes of South Rajasthan & Kutch Photo~Expedition™which she had joined in January 2010, as she moved from one photo shoot in a village to the next photographing with her two cameras; one "normal" like those used by the rest of us, and the second professionally modified to shoot infrared.