July | 2013 | Notre Dame Photography

Summer at Notre Dame has a lot going for it. First, it’s not winter, second, the lines at Subway and Starbucks are a lot shorter, and third…did I mention it’s not winter? But summer is also, in my opinion the least photogenic season on campus. The trees are all thick and exactly the same color, giving a solid canopy of green with inky dark shadows underneath. Oh, the trials of being a photographer, right?

But all that vegetation really lends itself to infrared (IR) photography.

Let me be quick to admit my utter lack of scientific knowledge of infrared light. (Hey, I was an Arts & Letters major!) In high school my photography teacher suggested I try shooting with infrared film and I though it was pretty cool. And it turns out digital cameras are actually quite sensitive to infrared light, and come from the factory with infrared-blocking filters over the imaging chip. Remove the sensor and presto, you’re shooting infrared!

Now that’s not as easy as it sounds–you have to send the camera to a facility that specializes in removing the IR filter. That’s right, you have to pay someone to ruin your camera.

A few years back I bought a cheap point-and-shoot camera with the idea of converting it to IR. It was summer, and I was curious to see campus in the IR wavelength. Wow. The shadows weren’t shadows anymore…the trees had texture once again…it was odd-looking to be sure, but in a cool way, I thought.

One morning I stopped by some campus landmarks with a tripod onto which I’d put my normal camera with my IR camera clamped right next to it, so I could make two versions of the same scene for comparison.

Here are three quick highlights, for a larger gallery–including ND Stadium in IR–check it out here: http://notredame.photoshelter.com/gallery-slideshow/G0000hJ8.FY7EM24/C0000vECNsCcal94?start=

Matt Cashore