Hi, I am Peter Hill and I have been shooting infrared since early 2009 when LifePixel converted a Canon EOS 10D for me. That new life for my old 10D also opened up a whole new photographic world for me, and the excitement of the IR creative process continues unabated.
These days I shoot with a converted Canon EOS 5D Mark II, but I have always used LifePixel’s Deep Black & White IR Filter. For me, the detail and contrast of strong black & white images it gives are a constant appeal, rather than the surreality of colour infrared.
Indeed, the best impact for the viewer I can hope to achieve with my infrared photography is a question forming in their minds – I know this is a black and white photograph, but there is something special about it I can’t quite place.
I hope you enjoy the gallery I have created on LifePixel’s website. The photographs are spread over the period from when I began to shoot infrared to mid-2016. If they have one common theme I guess it is the attraction to good crisp light for my IR cameras, be it at sunrise, sunset or at times in between. Many of the photographs were taken with either the original or Mark II version of Canon’s 24mm Tilt+Shift lens. You should be able to perceive which photographs, for example, I applied the Tilt function of the lens and/or the Shift function.
Most of the photographs I have selected have been included in one or more of my solo exhibitions. In fact, I have been told that my 2014 exhibition as part of Sydney’s Head On Photo Festival was Australia’s first exhibition exclusively devoted to black & white IR photography.
As for my philosophy about photography, I may be old school but for me photography is about capturing an image in-camera, not in creating something in Photoshop. This means I concentrate on my composition, respecting light and shadows and their respective luminance values, and on the getting the right exposure. Sure, there is a need to process RAW files, but too often I see so-called photographs being instead connections of composites and manipulation without disclosure. In terms of the photographic process, reality is an absent aspect. For example, a black and white photograph is not “reality”. But a concocted composite colour landscape, for example, attempts to be a real representation of something perfect, when instead it is a creative dead end and serves only to mislead.
My complete infrared portfolio can be viewed on Flickr and my personal website.
I also published a guide to infrared photography on Redbubble.
