Behold the wonderful magic of infrared wedding photography! . . .

Infrared photography is the process of using filters on or in the camera to record unique invisible light. I was inspired to learn infrared photography for weddings after seeing images in a book by photographers Patrick and Barbara Rice. ALSO a great inspiration is the infrared wedding images from Scott A Nelson, photographer. BTW, what makes infrared wedding photography COMPLETELY unique is that the effect can only be produced using filters in your camera! It CANNOT be produced in post-production with editing software.

Originally, capturing infrared wedding images with film cameras was complicated - "bracketing" and screw-on filters. You literally shot 'blind' and then hoped for the best when you brought the film to the lab to have it processed. Not to mention that weddings are a huge time crunch. Screwing on/off filters to your lenses and setting up the bracketing was a great waste of time.

Last year I had an old Nikon D1X digital camera converted for infrared wedding photography. The results are as great as film ever was for infrared and 100x easier and more time efficient.

So how come the effect of infrared cannot be reproduced in Photoshop? As many times as I have seen a 'recipe' online for creating 'realistic digital infrared' through Photoshop, it has NEVER come close. The major reason for this is that infrared light reflects off of every single thing in your scene differently! The leaves, the flowers, the lapel, the eyes, etc.! All reflect differently to infrared light!

Infrared wedding photography takes a bit of practice to get down. There are not many wedding photographers doing this, but it should definitely be considered when you are looking for the professional that is going to cover your wedding. This technique will separate the rookies from the professionals! You can be confident that your photographer is technically proficient with their cameras and is aware of photo tecniques that will make your final album look 100x more wonderful.

This article was written by Orange County Wedding Photographer, Steve Hoffmann. His work can be viewed directly at www.hoffmannphotographer.com or his most recent events at his blog www.hoffyblog.com.