Red Rock, Nevada in Infrared.

by james
(las vegas, nv)

I love these desert trees because of their tortured shapes and deep texture, but I've never been satisfied with any of the shots I taken with my regular cameras. And that mountain, it's inescapable. It dominates the view. Plus, it looks really cool. On one of the very few cloudy and rainy days here in Las Vegas, I decided to start experimenting with my new/used Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS3 point and shoot, converted to infrared, 650nm. As I was hiking, I came across this tree, felt a good vibe, took a few shots and moved on. I could not have guessed I would be so happy with this shot. Once I loaded it into photoshop, I started playing with the colors. I'm really not sure what I did. I think I went into "white balance," pulled the tabs to the left to various degrees, then went into the channel mixer and swapped out the red and blue channels. I may have gone into "levels" and played with it there. I have yet to replicate this look on any of my other shots. I love this shot because I feel it to be very well balanced and the false colors and clouds give it a fantasy feel.

The data reads - f2.8, ISO 100, 1/30 sec, 5.5mm focal length - the widest on my camera.