IR photography has peaked my interest for a long while now. Being that IR captures energy, I've always wondered about its applications in occult or paranormal settings…. Could it be used to capture the essence of people, for instance?

Online guidance centres around IR use in landscape photography, the little discourse I could find on portraiture was mostly complaints of dead eyes and highly visible veins… this struck a chord with me.... veins supplying blood, blood supplying energy, energy signatures, essence - I liked the implications and the thought of seeing beneath the skin, beneath the shell. Peeling back the layers of personhood.

I came across this blog which advised use of a diffuse light source, low ISO and long shutter speed; I drew my blackout curtains and switched on my desk lamp. Though I was able to to compose shots of myself in the viewfinder, once the filter was on the lens I couldn't see ANYTHINGGGG!

I wasn't in half the frames as I was shooting blind. Otherwise, I had limited success getting my veins to show; the low f-stop and delayed shutter was producing significant blur. I switched to an infrared bulb and used a tourniquet to really make my veins pop. Once I got the angles right arms were easy to shoot, but the shadows thrown by the tendons in my hands obscured most of my veins. I converted the images to B&W in lightroom and played around with the settings until they produced nice contrast.

I'm pretty pleased with these, especially for a first attempt. I'd like to really nail hand shots though. I'll continue to mess about with light sources and different body parts. Once I get the veins to show consistently I'll move on to film.

All imaged taken on Nikon D5500 + Hoya R72 filter + infrared lamp.

Adonis, age 20.