Infrared Sports Photographer Walks You Through His IR Photography Workflow

As great as infrared photography can be, for most of us, it’s an enigma that is often difficult to nail down since we’re capturing that which we can’t see with our eyes. However, just because we can’t actually see it, doesn’t mean we can’t teach our brain to visualize what the outcome will be when we snap the shutter.

Here to help us learn how to ‘see’ infrared light is Danish photographer Esben Olesen, who takes a few minutes to walk us through his basic infrared workflow when shooting with his converted DSLR.

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In the short video, Olesen shares a number of tips and suggestions on how to get the best photographs possible when shooting infrared. For example, he suggests you use high-noon sunlight — something you don’t often want to do in portraits — to create a more striking contrast in the images.

He also walks you through some post-production, showing you how to properly adjust the white balance and mess with the channel mixer to swap out colors.

If you’ve never experimented with IR photography and you want to give it a shot, the tips in the video will help make sure you get off on the right foot.

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