Infrared photography is a way of photographing light that our eyes can’t normally see.

When we look at a landscape, we’re seeing a relatively small part of the electromagnetic spectrum—the visible light that our eyes are able to detect. Infrared light sits just beyond the red end of that spectrum. We can’t see it with our eyes, but a specially modified camera can.

That’s where infrared photography gets interesting.

My Sony A7 has been converted to full spectrum, which means the camera is able to capture a much wider range of light than a normal camera. By putting different filters over the lens, I can choose which parts of that light reach the camera’s sensor.

And that’s what creates the different infrared looks.

The really fun part is that infrared doesn’t simply make a photograph look “red.” Instead, it changes the way different materials reflect light. Trees and other vegetation, for example, reflect a surprising amount of infrared light, so foliage can take on bright, almost glowing tones. Skies and water can become much darker, while clouds can stand out dramatically.

The result is a familiar scene that suddenly looks a little unfamiliar—almost like you’re seeing the landscape through a different set of eyes.

That’s what I enjoy most about infrared photography. I’m not necessarily looking for unusual subjects. I can photograph an ordinary landscape, a group of trees, or a familiar street and, by changing the filter, create an image that feels completely different from what we see with our eyes.

The filters

I use three different filters with my full-spectrum Sony A7: Candy Chrome, IR Chrome, and 665nm.

Each filter lets a different portion of the available light reach the camera, so each produces its own distinctive interpretation of the scene.

Candy Chrome gives me a more colorful, stylized infrared look. It’s especially fun when I want an image to feel surreal and almost dreamlike. Colors can shift in unexpected ways, giving familiar subjects a distinctly otherworldly appearance.

IR Chrome is designed to produce a look that is much closer to the classic color-infrared appearance. Vegetation can take on those characteristic pink, red, or magenta tones while the rest of the scene retains other colors. It’s one of my favorite ways to make a landscape look like a place that exists somewhere between reality and imagination.

665nm is a more traditional infrared approach. It allows a larger amount of visible red light through along with infrared, creating strong infrared effects while still retaining some color information. Depending on the subject and the way the image is processed, foliage can become lighter or take on warm tones, while skies can become dramatically darker. The resulting photographs often have a striking, surreal quality without looking completely detached from the original scene.

So, although I’m photographing the same world everyone else sees, the filters let me interpret it in three very different ways.

That’s really the appeal of infrared photography for me: it’s not about photographing a different world—it’s about showing a different version of the world we’re already in.