I’m working on something new that’s been haunting my mind for years: dark trees — ideally pitch black. But I never found the right filter to make it happen. My earlier ideas circled around green filters that heavily cut IR, and the Rusty Purple look actually emerged from those experiments.
Recently, though, I came across new inspiration through the work of another IR enthusiast named Fedia, whose results have always impressed me. Fedia shared some fascinating ideas and outcomes on the ultravioletphotography.com forum (for example here), and they’ve opened up new directions for me to explore.
The filter I’m using here is a very special astrophotography filter. Combined with a UV/IR cut filter, it produces the look you see here — straight out of camera.
I’m not quite where I want to be yet and will continue testing with both IR and UV — either visible + IR or visible + UV. I suspect that the UV combination might be more promising, but it’s too early to tell.
When it comes to IR false color, I feel like we’ve pretty much reached the end of the road. I doubt there’s much left to uncover on that front. But on the other side — with filters that transmit UV and selected wavelengths from the visible spectrum — there’s still potential for new and interesting discoveries.
