On the dolly dock, Port Orford, Oregon
(c) Darlene Lyon Kruse - All Rights Reserved

This past weekend, David Lorenz Winston and I co-led a photography workshop at Port Orford and Cape Blanco on the Oregon coast. The weather was great, no big winds at the Cape, partly cloudy skies. The photo ops were many, and we all had a great time exploring the beaches and docks with our cameras. "On the dolly dock, Port Orford, Oregon" is an infrared photograph I made while there.

About the dolly dock: Port Orford is unique. It has one of only two dolly docks in the United States. The harbor is too shallow for safe mooring and so boats are hoisted onto the dock with a huge pulley, placed onto custom-made dolly-trailers, and towed to their "mooring" space on top of the pier. This is a photograph of a commercial fishing boat being lowered from the dock to the water.

About the photo: This photo was made at about 9:45 AM (PDT) on August 28, 2010, with a Nikon D90 that has been converted to infrared. Metadata: 18mm lens, ISO 250, 1/200 sec at f/10. Post-processing included converting to black and white in CS3; levels and curves adjustments to pull out the drama in the sky, increase the contrast a bit, and deepen the darks; and sepia toning. In Lightroom I added a graduated filter to darken the sky and further accent those great, sweeping clouds. I also added a vignette.

This is not the usual infrared photograph, with lots of foliage turned white. There is some grass in the background that has turned white, but none on my subject -- the fishing boat. An infrared photograph of a non-landscape scene can create an image full of drama and texture. If there's anything in the sky at all, infrared will bring it out, even if it seems insignificant to our eyes. The dreamy quality I associate with film infrared is present in this image -- and has combined with the drama in the sky to make this an image I like a lot.