Infrared Photography Books

A Less-Than-Comprehensive Bibliography

The following list contains only books that I have personally read and found useful in my own infrared photography. For convenience, I have linked titles to Amazon.com, in case you are not lucky enough to have a real neighborhood book store that will special order relatively obscure books. Many of these books are also available from better libraries or through interlibrary loan.

This is not by any stretch a comprehensive list of infrared photography books. Among other shortcomings, it is limited to books that I can read, so there is no coverage of extensive German writings on the subject, for example.

People sometimes ask me why a particular book on IR photography is not on my list. Probably because I either haven't read it yet, or didn't find it particularly useful. If you have a new book that you think should be on my list, feel free to send me a copy and I'll be happy to read it!

The One Book You Really Want

The most comprehensive book on infrared photography, Clark and Gibson's Photography by Infrared: Its Principles and Applications, is unfortunately out of print. You may be able to find this book in better library systems or at good used book stores. This book addresses the science behind infrared photography in far more detail than any of the popular books on the subject, and provides a wealth of useful information. Its information on specific IR films is well out of date, even in the most recent edition (1978), but the fundamentals remain sound.

In my personal opinion, the rapid growth of digital infrared photography presents an excellent opportunity for a new edition of this book, combining updated film data (adding Konica and MACO, updating Kodak's various offerings) with general information on the use of digital cameras for infrared. Any camera-specific information would of course go out of date even faster than the information on film from decades past, but the general principles will remain the same.

General Infrared Information

• Infrared Photography Handbook by Laurie White. A relatively technical introductory book on infrared photography, with details on the exposure and processing of Kodak High Speed Infrared (HIE), filters, etc. By "relatively technical," I mean in comparison to many of the other popular books on infrared today, especially the others available from the same publisher, Amherst Media. It's not nearly as technical as M-28 or Clark & Gibson, but it goes well beyond the artsy coffee-table-book approach.
• Advanced Infrared Photography Handbook by Laurie White Hayball, takes up where her previous book left off, providing more detailed exposure, filtration, and lighting information. One very handy addition is a number of example pages with comparisons of HIE, Konica 750, and Ilford SFX under varying conditions, e.g. the same scene shot four times on each film, using no filter, #15 orange, #25 red, and #87 opaque. I don't entirely agree with everything she has to say (for instance, I find a polarizer very useful for some landscapes with Konica 750, while she considers polarizers not useful for infrared), but it's a very informative book, well worth reading.
• Digital Infrared Photography by Cyrill Harnischmacher provides a basic introduction to IR photography and good information on shooting IR with digital cameras. 
• Applied Infrared Photography, Kodak Publication No. M-28. There have been many different versions of this publication from Eastman Kodak. Older editions carry data for obsolete films, and even the newest editions do not have information on Kodak's newest films, or on other manufacturers' infrared films. Still, this guide does provide a reasonably detailed introduction to the use of both black-and-white and color infrared films, with exposure data, examples of different filter types, and information on applications ranging from art to archaeology to medicine to forensics.

  As a Kodak technical work it was very inexpensive, $4.50 for my 1977 edition. But now that it is out of print, used book searches will often show no copies available under $100. You're better off browsing photo swap meets and watching eBay ads than paying those prices.

• The Art of Infrared Photography by Joseph Paduano. This is less technically detailed than M-28 or Clark & Gibson, but gives a broad overview of the artistic potential of infrared. I actually preferred a previous edition, whose printing suggested the impact toning can have on the ethereal mood of HIE, but the current edition is still an excellent book, and would make a good one-volume introduction to infrared photography.

Infrared People Photography

• Infrared Portrait Photography: Techniques and Images in Black & White by Richard Beitzel. Though the title mentions portraits, this book covers more than traditional portraiture, providing many interesting possibilities for exploiting the appearance of the human body by infrared light.
• Infrared Wedding Photography by Barbara Rice. Infrared people photography doesn't have to be studio photography. This book details one special case, infrared wedding photography. There's definitely something about the otherworldly look of HIE that ties in well with the fairy tale wedding, especially when contrasted with much of today's informal, almost journalistic, color wedding photography.

  Much of the information in this book applies to other IR people photography in general.

• Infrared Nude Photography: A Guide to Infrared and Advanced Technique by Joe Paduano. The human body is a subject we all know well, so it's one where the surrealistic impact of IR is most strongly felt. There is a broad portfolio of IR nudes in the book, plus explanatory text that's clearly written by an established expert IR photographer. Even if you plan to shoot only people with their clothes on, this book may help you see more of the potential and understand more of the pitfalls of IR people photography. If I had to recommend just one book on IR people photography, this would be it.
• Medical Infrared Photography, Kodak Medical Publication no. N-1. This guide progressed through a few editions, but is now out of print and hard to find used. Most people will have no need for the detailed data on how to make various conditions and afflictions more conspicuous on film, and in fact the main reason this book is useful to non-medical photographers is that you'll know to avoid techniques that make spiderwebs of black veins spread across your model's skin when you're trying for that halated marble sculpture look.

Infrared Landscapes

• Infrared Landscape Photography by Todd Damiano. This book provides the aspiring landscape photographer with dozens of excellent examples. Unfortunately, it's relatively light on technical details, so you may be left wanting to achieve an effect without knowing how. If you want to work on infrared landscapes, I'd suggest getting this book for inspiration, but one of the general IR books for more information.

Other

• In Ruins: The Once Great Houses of Ireland by Simon Marsden isn't an infrared photography book per se. It's a fabulous collection of infrared photographs of great houses in disrepair. The grainy, halated look of infrared is perfect for these otherworldly relics of a different age. But don't go looking for any technical details, this is a book of art, not science, and it doesn't actually mention that the images are shot on infrared film.

This page written by Josh Putnam. Please feel free to email questions, comments, corrections, suggestions, etc.

© Joshua Putnam