A Walk Through Sackville, New Brunswick

Digital original

Just as I discovered when I started working with digital cameras in 2003, one thing that the infrared-modified Nikon D70 is encouraging in my work is the simple process of photographing for the joy of it. Often I find myself making an image just to see how it would look with the infrared camera. This is particularly advantageous at this point, as I am still learning how to use the camera, make good exposures, and generally overcome some of its quirks. Unlike traditional DSLR cameras, there is little documentation for infrared modified bodies, so there is a lot of experimentation and testing involved in the process of learning the new camera.

Digital original

That being said, many of the experiments I have been making have resulted in interesting photographs in their own right. One unexpected side effect of the infrared conversion is that most images created with the camera appear as near monochrome photographs on the post-view LCD screen on the back of the camera (this is because the image is made with a custom white balance, which almost totally negates the strong red cast of the infrared image under normal camera settings). This essentially means that I get to post-view each exposure in black and white, and get a much better sense of how the subject is being rendered in black and white. When I was working with my first infrared modified DSLR, a Sigma SD10, the images were all deep red on the LCD, so this added advantage to the modified Nikon D70 was quite unexpected.

Digital original