Saturday 28 December 2013

Cyrill Harnischmacher - A small review of his book "Digital Infrared Photography"

Cyrill Harnischmacher  

In DPP Assignment 1 I mentioned that I had been studying one of Cyrill's books called "Digital Infrared Photography".

There are very few good digital infra-red red books available which was what initially drew me to Cyrill's work.

Cyrill is a German photographer who lives and works in South Germany. He won a prestigious Fotobuch award with his first book "Low Budget Shooting".  I've not got a copy of this book but I feel this could be a good read because it gives suggestive ideas of how to build studio and lighting equipment on a low budget. Photography can be an expensive past time with as a hobby or if making a career from it. 

Cyril is primarily a studio photographer by profession but has an interest in nature and infra-red photography and also close-up photography which again is another area I have interest in.

The following is a link to a review of his book, Digital Infrared Photography:
http://blogcritics.org/book-review-digital-infrared-photography-by/

Here are some of Crill's images:
http://www.fotocommunity.de/fotograf/cyrill-harnischmacher/fotos/30880

Its very surprising that for an accomplished professional photographer there is very little photographic images by Cyrill available on the Internet in fact I wasn't able to find any IR images of his at all with the exception of a few I found already in his book. Whilst I found his book very helpful and interesting I feel that there is more information that I require, more inspiration and high quality images that I'd like to see not only to develop ideas but to have a bar set so that the quality of these images can be something I can aspire to.

I had intended to study and perform a review of his work but I just can't find anything not in his book on the Internet despite intensive searching

Cyrill's book "Digital Infrared Photography" is arguably the best digital IR photography book available but was published in 2008

Unfortunately there appears to be a big gap in the IR photography market. Whilst there may not be a big demand for IR images from a professional perspective from an interest and hobbyist perspective I strongly feel there is a big gap to be filled. As mentioned in my assignment 1 submission for DPP perhaps this could be something that I may aspire to either in a book format to bring IR photography more up to date in the digital photography world or as sets of images.

He details some good information on the theory behind IR and the advantages and disadvantages of the types of optimisation of infrared digital cameras. He explains well the different types of filters and some of the images within his book are identical aside from the different filters used so that the reader can see the differences the filters create.

There is some good detail around the digital processing of IR images and there is also some good detail around optimising IR images with layers and creating IR images with good tonal range.

I found I learnt quite a lot from this book but it does feel as if he could have gone further with his techniques. Of course the reader is also armed with enough information to take this forward.

Whilst there are images contained within his book I feel that there aren't enough to satisfy my desire to see some really good and stunning images, perhaps this is not what he sought out to do. Additionally there are no links to his website, which I cannot find, nor links to his IR work not contained within the book.

This will be a book I refer to as part of my OR processing and for some inspiration around IR images and capability but from an image perspective I really wanted more to wow me and to give my something to aspire to.

Infrared is definitely something I will continue to to progress and develop skills in and I will continue to use IR work as part of my degree. In this respect I will need to become more creative in my work. I currently use a Nikon D80 which an internal 665nm filter, this allows me to use colour in my IR work as well as mono

For anyone interested in IR photography processing as a beginner or are developing an interest here is a good site to have a look at:

http://miirimage.blogspot.co.uk/p/digital-infrared-photography-tutorial.html

I am member of several IR groups on Flickr whicc I regularly review the images to discover additional ideas, styles and types of images. I also contribute to these groups and many of IR images will be found here:

Infrared
http://www.flickr.com/groups/infraredphotography/

Converted Digital Infrared
http://www.flickr.com/groups/lifepixel/

Nikon D80 Infrared:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/nikond80infrared/

IR World:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/56536992@N00/

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