Graham Hobart answers your Questions

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Over the years Graham Hobart developed various techniques by manipulating the way light, composition and detail work together to create images that have all the grit and character of old Victorian lithographs.

This nostalgic look in my work is meant to take your imagination back to a time when artists ventured out into the far reaches of the unknown world and returned with fantastic drawings, paintings and lithographs that described the wondrous beauty of breathtaking landscapes, strange plants, exotic species and unfamiliar cultures. 

It is my hope that that rediscovering this feeling of wonder toward the Natural World Hobart will inspire you to do something about the decline of the natural world and reverse the current march to self-destruction.

All of my work is captured within the Infrared Spectrum. One big advantage of this is that foliage takes on a dream-like appearance because infrared sees green as white.  And because infrared sees dark blue as almost black skies can sometimes look quite dramatic. Ultimately it is the interpretation of what is essentially a rather dull and bland original image that needs lots of work to render an outcome that has the look and feel of art rather than special-effects photography.

There are many differences between the way I capture an image in infrared vs visible light:

• The camera requires a lot more light to get an image
• Everything takes a long time to set up
• Processing the final image is very interpretive and slow
• When shooting with DSLRs calibrating each body to work with various lenses is problematic.

Together these limitations compound and result in most of the images rendered unusable. But as you can see sometimes it all comes together beautifully.

All my images were captured with digital cameras that have been specially converted to only see infrared light.

In the past I worked with converted DSLRs but I am now working with converted mirrorless cameras. These newer cameras are totally silent because they don't have a mirror or a shutter and with their advanced focusing technology they reduce the number of rejected images because of failed focus calibrations.