Infrared Centenary

Cor · Jul 21, 2009

Dear all,

No sure if this is the right place, and I also take the liberty of posting a link in the B&W forum, but I got this note from a friend who is a IR enthusiast like me:

Dear Infrared friends and allumni,

I wanted to let you know that I am trying to evangelise celebrations of the centenary of infrared imaging next year. You can see some detail on www.infrared100.org
but basically it stems from Wood's October 1910 paper for the Royal Photographic Society.

I attempted to contact Willem Jan but got no response so I have no idea what has happened to him and the group. While I am still shooting I am not a member of any other infrared forums and I wonder what general IR contacts you guys might have to help me let people know about this.

I started this off with the RPS because the first publication of Wood's images was in their Journal. They were also printed in a 1911 issue of Illustrated London News and I'm looking for other early infrared photos. Does anyone have names for infrared photographic pioneers? I know there were some in the 1930s and probably earlier.
The reason we'd like to know is the the RPS collection in Bradford is indexed by photographer not genre so the only way of seeing what gems they might have is by finding some photographer names.

Here's my research so far:

Ansel Adams hated infrared! However Weegee is known to have used infrared for candid night-time shots and for an iconic shot of people in a cinema watching a movie. I also recall an infrared photo by Minor White. He took a series of landscapes in the 1950s. I have also come across infrared photos by Edward Steichen made during World War II (eg http://www.geh.org/taschen/htmlsrc10/m197400250732_ful.html)
, and heard of (but not seen) some Arctic images shot by Antonio Jose Martins.

A Dr Josef Daimer of Vienna, Dr H Haxthausen - a Copenhagen dermatologist - and Hans Reuter of Berlin took some of the photos in Dr Othmar Helwich's 1930s book on infrared photography (Helwich also took some of them ... all using Ilford plates).

LV Stewart Blacker took some IR shots flying over Everest in 1933 (which were published in the Times apparently). Kodak published an aerial shot of Mt Rainier by Bradford Washburn and a Captain AW Stevens USAF took some aerial IR for Kodak in the 30s.

Dr Herzler of Yerkes university published IR astonomical images in the 1930s.

Greenwood included many infrared landscapes (and others) in his 'Infra- red for everyone' , again I think from the 30s. He thanks Ilford for the illustrations so I don't think he took them but it looks as if Ilford's library (where ever that is now) would have a lot of IR plates in it.

There was at least one notable IR photographer in the UK in the 1930s but I can't lay my hands on a note of his name. He didn't publish any books, although he did write a section on infrared photography for a 1930s encyclopedia of photography.

More recently it seems that Anton Corbijn has used infrared for some 'famous' shots such as U2 album sleeves, and Simon Marsden uses it for his ghost books. There is a guy named something like Trevellian who has photos used on paperbacks, including Inspector Morse books (I should write his name down next time I see one). There are also the people who wrote infrared books, such as Joe Paduano, who are known as photographers. You can see the list in my online bibliography.

There are already plans for conferences by astronomers and medical thermographers and I have enthusiastic backing from Flir Systems (who have a commercial interest in far infrared of course), and Johns Hopkins University (Wood's long-time home) should be celebrating in some way but more people should know.

Basically this is a kind of 'please tell your friends' message as I want people to know about the centenary and if they want to do something to celebrate it all the better. I can list events on the Infrared 100 site but the one thing I don't want to happen is for it to be ignored. did you know about the Herscell Infrared bicentenial in 2000 for example? I didn't know there was one but apparently there was.

Happy to discuss this further if you like ... just get back in touch.
And forward the gist of this email as much as you like.

Cheers

Andy

---------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Finney: andy@atsf.co.uk

Best,

Cor

steven_e007 · Jul 22, 2009

I'd love to know more about Wood's methods.Presumablyhe used dyes to sensitise his own plates?

I'm sure we mostly all rely on buying IR film to take IR images, but I wonder if there is a Do It Yourself route to sensitising an emulsion ourselves?

Also, I've heard very little about Ultra Violet photography, which I believe Wood's discussed and introduced at the same time. I would like to learn more about this.

R/D · Jul 22, 2009

Thanks so much for posting this ! I just switched to film but shot infrared extensively for years. its absolutely incredible this man discovered those light waves 100 years ago.

Cor · Jul 23, 2009

steven_e007 said:
I'd love to know more about Wood's methods.Presumablyhe used dyes to sensitise his own plates?

I'm sure we mostly all rely on buying IR film to take IR images, but I wonder if there is a Do It Yourself route to sensitising an emulsion ourselves?

Also, I've heard very little about Ultra Violet photography, which I believe Wood's discussed and introduced at the same time. I would like to learn more about this.

Hi Steve,

Do not know anything about the methods Wood used, but I assume it must be by adding dyes to a "standard" emulsion. (perhaps you could ask Andy)

I did read about the feasibility of "doping" a standard film with IR sensitive dyes (after all EFKE IR film is said to be the PL100 film with added IR dyes). That would mean that you would soak a normal B&W film in the dark in a solution with the IR dye and let that film dry again in the dark.

Never heard about anybody doing that in practice though. Another problem is that these dyes seem to be very expensive and hard to obtain, and how much should you take? Offcourse PE would know, but if this is a fruitfull route..

Best,

Cor

AgX · Jul 23, 2009

In sensitizing a readymade film with an IR sensitizer, issues of concentrations, times and fast drying show up. I thought about it but found it quite impractible. At least with IR-films around...

Infrared Centenary

Cor

steven_e007

R/D

Cor

AgX

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