So, it’s 2025 and rolling towards the end of St. Louis Daily Photo’s 18th year. Also looks like I’ve made it through my third quarter century. I need to go out and find some fresh ways to look at this town but I may have to look into the archives for a bit. This looks like it could be a winter scene in Forest Park - but what’s with that very liquid water jet? The image is one of my attempts to do infrared in color, taken in summer.
This old picture shows what you can get when you do an infrared conversion in color. The scene is one I showed recently in monochrome. Color is more technically difficult. I will have to go back through the tutorials if I shoot more of these.
A long-time reader of this blog complained politely that she was tired of gloomy, high contrast monochrome infrared images. The original IR images are very magenta. It’s not hard to manipulate them into dramatic B&Ws, but there is also a way to make otherworldly color pictures. I used to do it more often but it’s complicated and I don’t remember the process well. Maybe I’ll post one of the old ones tomorrow. For now, arches from the World’s Fair Pavilion in an icy blue.
I am so out of material. It’s cold and wet today and miserable for outdoor shooting. I’ll scramble.
More infrared. A small lake in Forest Park contains what is called a bandstand surrounded by a lovely garden, although I have no knowledge of any performance being held there. It would be hard to hear across the water, which makes me wonder about its purpose. Beauty is good enough.
It’s not an arrogant mythical king but it is just as futile. Someone mentioned in a comment to Monday’s post that the missing sphere from the line could be seen at the upper right of the frame. But no, it is a separate sculpture by the locally famous Bob Cassilly, co-founder of the nothing-else-like-it -in the-world City Museum. The turtle may try to climb the sphere or push it forward but no amount of effort leads to progress.
The other side of our World’s Fair Pavilion, down a long terraced hill. It’s December, but in warmer months an interesting fountain flows over these blocks. It looks more dramatic in IR.
I had some time yesterday to get out to Forest Park with my infrared-converted camera. Working with these files in color is complicated. It depends on the band of IR wavelengths your camera sensor sees, making subtle adjustment in the channel mixer in Photoshop and other things I understand poorly. Monochrome is easier. The chlorophyll in leaves turns white and bright blue skies turn dark. Forest Park as you never see it.
One blow after another. The execrable Matt Gaetz as Attorney General? Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as Secretary off Health and Human Services, someone who discourages using vaccines and thinks something in the water can make children transgender? Seriously? I’m drifting into a personal, unproven conspiracy theory that Trump, full of schadenfreude, really wants to wreck the country. So, another old photo, an infrared looking over Forest Park, where the trees are white and the sky is dark.
I'm hard up for new material and was looking back at some infrared pictures I took in Forest Park last summer. Green foliage looks light gray or white in IR. Still, it makes me think of the Robert Frost poem: Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though. He will not see me stopping here to watch his woods fill up with snow.
Around the bend in the same artificial lagoon in Forest Park. Pretty bridge, pretty landscaping, and the strange shadings of infrared light images. Our everyday world in a way we can never see on our own.
I needed a couple of days worth of material and, as happens often, I didn't have an idea in my head. Just for something different, I got out my camera that has the sensor modified for infrared and headed to Forest Park.
It was a Saturday afternoon and, as usual in good weather, there were wedding parties out for photographs at the scenic spots. This is the end of what's called the Grand Basin. For a good backdrop, the art museum is up a hill at the other end. Infrared images turn green foliage nearly white. It fits the occasion.
The image inventory will fill up quickly this week. The St. Lou Fringe, https://www.stlfringe.org/, starts tomorrow night and, like every year, I'll be there snapping away.
Another infrared image of the Gateway Arch. It's about all I have of edited recent images, pending an interesting event today. Come back tomorrow for some gorgeous St. Louis architecture.
Another picture from the recent day when I was out cruising for infrared images. This is the intersection of Fourth and Market Streets in downtown St. Louis, taken from behind the wheel of my car at a stoplight. The building in the foreground is what we call the Old Courthouse, parts of which date back to 1828. Hard to believe considering what's behind it, but it was the tallest building in Missouri until 1894. It's now run by the National Park Service.
Haven't had a Thursday Arch picture in some time. There are only so many ways to look at it but this is a little different. Still wandering around with my infrared camera, this time at the park across the Mississippi from the monument in East St. Louis, Illinois. It's subtle, but I like what IR does to the colors of the flag.
The Grand Basin, Art Hill and the St. Louis Art Museum in Forest Park. The slope that looks like it is covered with snow is a rich green lawn. It is, however, STL's favorite sledding venue at the opposite time of the year.
What causes infrared radiation? Heat, the same stuff the new Webb Space Telescope registers. Some of us photography nuts get an old camera body modified with an infrared sensor and go out to do our own research on what the eye cannot see.
Saturday was tied for the hottest of recent days (Sunday got to 104 F / 40 C, too). I went out driving around, leaving the car as little as possible, to see what I could capture. Green foliage reflects infrared like crazy and looks white in a photo. There are a couple of specific Photoshop techniques to adjust the other colors. This is the pagoda on an island in Forest Park. More to come.
Another wildflower from Forest Park in infrared. It's what I got, but you can create dramatic effects with a little work in Photoshop.
