Richard Mosse - IR work

My tutor suggested I look the IR work of Richard Mosse from his website:

http://www.richardmosse.com/

During 2012 Richard and some colleagues infiltrated an armed rebel group in the Eastern Congo in a war zone, to use his words "plagued by frequent ambushes, massacres and systematic sexual violence".

The resulting imagery is film and images shot on 16mm infra-red film resulting in images in what is quoted as being in a "disorientating psychedelic palette".

The result in the main is that foliage is represented in a "psychedelic" pink and given the brutal violence that takes place in this area I cannot help but think that the pink colours within his images represent blood stained land where this violence takes place:
http://www.richardmosse.com/works/infra/#5

Mosse is quoted as attempting to rethink war photography. The IR film that has been used is said to have a primary use to help identify camouflage which I take to mean the hidden armed rebel groups, or perhaps just identify hidden areas and individuals when used by nations who have this type of technology. When viewed in this IR format the camouflage of clothes that normally blend in with jungle type foliage and now more easily identifiable. In this example though the soldier is a dummy its easier to pick out the soldiers clothes against the pink foliage background:
http://www.richardmosse.com/works/infra/#7

Most or all of this violence is hidden from the modern world who either choose not to look or perhaps have become accustomed to the violence that takes place outside of the safe havens most of us live in.

I believe that in using this IR film to image a war zone he gives viewers are chance to see through different eyes, indeed a different media, that gives a focus to this location.

One of the reasons I enjoy IR photography is that it allows imagery to be displayed in a way that the human eye does not see in. Indeed so of the IR post processing such as channel swapping attempts to bring back elements such as blue skies to help the viewer relate the images taken by an IR camera to the images their eyes might normally see. This has not been done

I don't know what type of IR film Mosse has used but it it does not appear to have the same effect that the 665nm internal IR filter I use e.g. in Mosse's images the individuals skin, hair eyes etc remain unchanged but against a background of pink foliage and possible some different colour rendering of clothes. Images I take give a porcelain type of effect to skin, perhaps even a look of marble where skin blemishes are no longer visible, perhaps showing the inner depth of the skin surrounding people's bodies. For example:
http://www.richardmosse.com/works/infra/#4
Perhaps it shows the apparent external untouched people living within the shocking activities that go on around them but is unable to show the inner thoughts and feelings they have

In the following image this appears isolated from the "pink" foliage and perhaps the image suggests it as a safe haven from the horrors that exist around it or something just untouched so far:
http://www.richardmosse.com/works/infra/#8

In this image within the mist the psychedelic pinks are muted and perhaps suggest the horrors have yet to begin either by or against this small group of people:
http://www.richardmosse.com/works/infra/#9

This image of General Fervrier whilst perhaps intended by the subject to be an intimidating pse instead with pink and purple colours appears perhaps camp and in image in western eyes that would not have been welcomed I don't think by the subject in his eyes:
http://www.richardmosse.com/works/infra/#12

I think perhaps that this is my favourite of the landscape images, perhaps because the pink colours are more muted or less dominant or simply that the horrors within the land cannot be seen:
http://www.richardmosse.com/works/infra/#21
Where as in this image the poor boy has suffered some unimaginable horror:
http://www.richardmosse.com/works/infra/#3

This final image that I wish to comment on is aptly named "Nowhere to Run" and given that around 5.4 million people have died in the Eastern Congo and for many of them, they did indeed have no where to run.

Its a very interesting concept to use infra-red photography utilising the psychedelic pink colours and given that this is termed "a search for more adequate ways to represent a forgotten African tragedy" and use "arts potential to represent narrative that is so painful that they exist beyond language" I think Mosse has succeeded. The images do stand out and bring attention to the images that perhaps the world's population has either got immune to or is easy to ignore - its much more difficult to this with the style of imagery Mosse has chosen to use.

Whilst I would think that reportage photography should not be subject to the post processing techniques that perhaps advertising and modelling are, using infrared in this way for me maintains the accuracy and true to life images one would expect, its simply the medium used much like mono film has been used in the past in the reportage photography seen in many other war zones. This has given me the aspirations to at least consider where I could do this also with me infra-red work.