Every tree needs a hug.

June 21, 2010 7:44 AM

These photos of trees in infrared demonstrate the Wood effect, a surreal glow named for its named for its discoverer, the aptly named Robert W. Wood
posted by Obscure Reference (18 comments total)

I wish trees looked like that all the time. Cherry blossoms everywhere!
posted by contessa at 8:07 AM on June 21, 2010

In other news, I have some pictures of fluorescing sidewalks that demonstrate the Cement effect, named after it's discover, Horatio J. Cement.
posted by bpm140 at 8:12 AM on June 21, 2010 [5 favorites]

Wood was a very active practical joker. I'm surprised there's no mention of it in the wiki biographical article. His exposure of the N-Ray fiasco was partly due to his pranksterism.
posted by warbaby at 8:21 AM on June 21, 2010

I wish trees looked like that all the time. Cherry blossoms everywhere!

Or would we just grow used to it and rhapsodize over some effect that turned leaves various and mysterious shades of green?

Beautiful stuff by the way.
posted by philip-random at 8:37 AM on June 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Or would we just grow used to it and rhapsodize over some effect that turned leaves various and mysterious shades of green?

Well, you know what they say, the tree is always hallucinogenically pinkly haloed on the other side.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:46 AM on June 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

I love shooting infrared; it's been a boon to my photographic creativity when things feel boring. I can just pop down to the park or the botanical gardens, and Voom! Even in winter, the ethereal b/w is fun.

Also, people look really weird in IR. In an IR self-portrait, my normally medium brown eyes are rendered as a very light grey. Spooky.
posted by notsnot at 8:50 AM on June 21, 2010

Really, really stunning photographs-- freighted with an immense significance which is completely beyond my grasp. If I could just walk around for a day seeing the world only in this light.

I didn't realize Wood was the debunker of N-rays. I could not help cringing in sympathy with poor, presumably self-deluded Blondlot as I read Wood's (?) account of removing a critical part of the apparatus as Blondlot waxes ever more lyrical about the marvels he is observing.

Take a look at that photograph of Wood in the Wikipedia article.

A very formidable human being along a number of independent dimensions, I would say.
posted by jamjam at 8:50 AM on June 21, 2010

Making an Improvised Infrared Transmitting Filter. (This worked great on my old 1.3 megapixel Olympus digicam.)
posted by usonian at 8:52 AM on June 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

I didn't realize Wood was the debunker of N-rays.

I didn't know that either, nor did I know the debunking was apparently begun as a prank. I also never realized there was a "University of Nancy" a name which is sending me into paroxysms of enjoyment.
posted by DU at 9:17 AM on June 21, 2010

named for its discoverer, the aptly named Robert W. Wood

This sounds like a joke my dad would make.

"Who invented the tourniquet?"

"That's easy. Joe Tourniquet."
posted by brundlefly at 9:50 AM on June 21, 2010 [2 favorites]

In related news, it was discovered that when photographing objects in the visible light spectrum, objects that reflect more visible light than less reflective objects, exhibit a surreal effect called "Brightness."
posted by charlie don't surf at 10:20 AM on June 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

I wish trees looked like that all the time.

They do look like that all the time. To rattlesnakes.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 11:12 AM on June 21, 2010 [5 favorites]

But there is, unseen by most, an underworld... a place that is just as real, but not so brightly lit.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:37 AM on June 21, 2010 [1 favorite]

Wood's excellent books How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers and Animal Analogues are online, as is most of his science fiction novel The Man Who Rocked the Earth.
posted by twoleftfeet at 2:48 PM on June 21, 2010

I believed you and read the first 39 pages of The Man Who Rocked the Earth, but that's all there was. To qualify as "most" the story would have to resolve itself pretty quickly.
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:08 AM on June 22, 2010

I like this stuff. Gilad Benari is a photographer i follow who has done some nice IR work. This (layered IR and color) is one of my favorites and one more and one more.
posted by moss free at 7:39 AM on June 22, 2010

I spent all evening playing Plants vs Zombies HD and then went to bed - This post must have resonated with me somehow, because I had very vivid pink-tinted Plants vs Zombies dreams.
posted by lizzicide at 8:47 AM on June 22, 2010

Hmm... Can't say the photos do that much for me. They just look like the normal stuff people shoot when they first learn about near-IR photography. Maybe I've seen too many false colour IR photos -- there isn't even a single black and white one there.
posted by Soupisgoodfood at 10:45 PM on June 27, 2010