Today I wandered outside and offset against a pure blue sky was skywriting being done. Now I could have just looked at it and gone back inside, but I naturally grabbed a camera instead.
The camera I grabbed was my 350D that was converted for infrared photography and my 100-400 f5.6 IS L-series lens. The resulting images, some of which are below, were shot at various stages of the skywriting and sometime afterwards as it started to dissipate.
I think the results are quite interesting and illustrate the point that you should never be afraid to try shooting something. You never know what the results will be.
We often have expectations of what we can and cannot photograph. Usually these expectations are not only completely wrong but they also hold us back in various ways. I had this made clear to me last week.
Last week we got away to the family beach out for a bit of R&R, which was desperately needed. One night we went to an amusement park that is set up on the foreshore every summer. I had my camera gear with me more for security reasons than with an expectation of shooting. But since I was there and I had my gear I decided to try out my IR converted Canon 350D. The results were fun and not bad, pointing to some more work I should do with it.
The resulting images have the now normal to me mixed warm/cool subtle color tones and point to be being able to shoot such activities and get interesting results. Exposures were around f4 or f4.5, 1/45 to 1/60 second and 400 or 800ISO, depending on the amount of light present. I did notice that visible light levels were not always a good indicator of IR levels in this situation, so I let the camera decide.
I this case I overcame a preconception and learned something in the process.