A Spring Devoid of Flowers

This has been an unusual spring to say the least. We took our annual trip to Charleston in March to  photograph the magnificent Magnolia Plantation and other very cool places in the Charleston area.

Normally, the gardens would be teeming with various colors of azalea and other flowers and flowing spanish moss. This year, the flowers were blooming in Charleston in February! That was the death knell for our late March bloom. However, there were great clouds, bright sun and lots of green: Perfect for Infrared.

Here’s a few images with some text from our Charleston trip, where I shot about 80% infrared using my super color converted D800.

By 9 am, the light is perfect on this river oak. The sun was just over my right shoulder.

By noon, the sun was bright enough to light up the underside of this canopy. Brightened up by slightly increasing the whites slider in LR.

I’m always on the lookout for a good single cloud, then I try to find a subject to use with it. Note that these clouds break up quickly, so I’m moving quickly to get into position. Within 10 seconds after this exposure, the cloud completely dissipated.

Always expect the unexpected. Luckily, I have a 24-120mm lens as my primary IR lens. So, 120mm I was able to get the subject to fill and look into the frame, getting my very first infrared wildlife image!

Shooting infrared in a flowerless garden gives an ethereal feel and the illusion that there are many flowers in the picture.

On one of the many Edisto Island back roads, the foliage and canopy is perfect for infrared, especially with the highlights starting to come in. They highlights blend perfectly with the foliage. This was finished off with a slight glow effect in PS.

Old structures amidst trees is a classic surreal look in infrared. Late afternoon, with the sun at my back here, resulted in good contrast, a dark sky and darkness in the branches, which separate it from the structure.

Adding color using the Hue, saturation, red, green, blue and white balance sliders, after performing a channel swap.

The high contrast created by the harsh direct sunlight made this an impossible color image, but perfect for infrared. The most difficult part was finding order in the chaos of the unbelievable Angel Oak, in Charleston.

The infrequent flower patches, which were gone the next day because of cold, were very uneven. Color would leave many unattractive black holes. However, again perfect for infrared!

The small swamp behind the office is a great morning image as the sun is behind my left shoulder, nicely front lighting the trees (no flowers). Everything seemed to mesh together, so I went into color infrared, which enabled me to make slightly different pastel tonalities, which separated the trees and seemed to match the emotion of the moment.

I expected to have to shoot a lot of infrared on this trip because of the early bloom. But, I chose to shoot a lot of infrared on this trip because the subject matter was perfect and varied.

Moral: Situations that are the worst for some situations, are the absolute best for other situations.

That’s about it.

Get out there and take some Gr8 IR shots!

Tony Sweet

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Latest articles by Tony Sweet (see all articles)

• A Spring Devoid of Flowers - April 25, 2016
• Infrared loves springtime in Charleston SC - March 23, 2016
• Spring is prime-time for infrared! - February 2, 2016

Tony Sweet

After successful careers as a jazz musician/ educator, and professional magician, Tony settled on photography as his chosen means for personal expression. Tony has become an in-demand speaker throughout the United States and Canada on creativity in the digital age.

Tony and Susan Milestone conduct Visual Artistry photography location workshops in the United States, Canada, and Iceland. Tony maintains an active speaking schedule to photography organizations, industry trade shows and PPA schools across the continental United States and Canada. He also conducts an annual Visual Artistry Creativity Seminar series.

Tony’s photography is published worldwide in every medium and is represented by Getty Images. His iPhone photography is represented by Aurora Photos. Tony’s images are also used by Nikon, MacPhun, Singh Ray, Alien Skin, Topaz, Lensbaby and others for national ad campaigns.

An interview with Tony on macro photography was published in The New York Times.

Tony is a Nikon Legend Behind the Lens.

He has articles and images are published in numerous industry publications, such as Nikon World, Shutterbug, Rangefinder, and for the Nikon Learn and Explore website.

Tony has authored five books on the art of photography: Fine Art Nature Photography (’02), Fine Art Flower Photography (’05) Fine Art Nature Photography: Water, Ice, Fog (’07), Fine Art Digital Photography (’09) and HDR Photography (2011). He and Masterphoto Workshops have co-produced four photography DVDs: Visual Artistry, HDR Made Easy, Visual Literacy and Flower Photography Artistry, as well as an iPhone instructional video series. His Creativity Seminar lecture is available for digital download and On Location-Cape Cod will be released for digital download, April 2016.

His current camera for infrared photography is the Nikon D800 with the Super Color IR Conversion.

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