artistic Thermal Photography

[Vipitis]

So, the topic came up recently again. It interests me as well. I went to the internet to see what other people have been doing outside of this forum. I found quite some interesting personalities with good galleries and publications regrading art with thermal images.

Joseph Giacomin
Professor in London.
In this Interview he mention is camera is a FLIR T360.
I found this gallery, it seems to be compressed with bad jpeg artifacts - but in the top right corner you can change palette!
The same website also features a list with a lot of resources on topics directly or indirectly related.

Linda Alterwitz
In this interview she mentions to use a camera from SPI, but on her website is a FLIR logo.
You can find her various galleries on the website here and here; I belive some images have been taken with a visual camera or have been digitally altered.

Marne Lucas & Jacob Pander NSFW
Started thermal infrared video. Initially got attention more then 20 years ago with an adult film called THE OPERATION and their recent project INCIDENT ENERGY.
On her Facebook I found this image, the camera looks like a FLIR T600 or T1000 series to me. But I think they used different cameras for the whole project.

Does anybody know of more artists that use thermal cameras? Please share and discuss in this thread.

E: revived links for Linda (23.02.2019)

[Spirit532]

she mentions to use a camera from SPI, but on her website is a FLIR logo.

SPI doesn't really make anything - they just re-brand as many things as possible at the highest possible markup to make the most money.
And their website looks like it was made in notepad by an 8-year-old

As for people that do artistic thermal, we have our own Ultrapurple that does high-res photography

[Vipitis]

The SPI website x20.org is one the worst I know. It's filled with buzzwords, 8sizes of text in 3 colors and has no structure whatsoever.

[mwesleyroper]

There is a flickr group of of Therm-App users created by Ultrapurple.   Many artistic images are uploaded and there is also discussion.

https://www.flickr.com/groups/therm-app-users/

[Vipitis]

I found one hidden gallery on the artist posted earlier: http://www.lindaalterwitz.com/thermal_portrait.html

this one is really interesting, but it seems to be cropped to get rid of the FLIR logo or something.

[Vipitis]

I haven't heard back from Linda yet.

Grey Hutton has two series of thermal images. These are not only beautiful photographs, but also convey touching stories. Click through both of them!

E: missed the hyperlink 

[Vipitis]

Liam Maloney has at least one series of thermal images made in Lebanon. The images on his website are 1600x1200 so I believe it is a 160x120 camera. The palette is quite unusual, field of view is narrow and there seems to be no focus to the images. I don't know the exact model of camera used. Be sure to click through the gallery and get a story to each picture by clicking the little "i" in the bottom.

[Vipitis]

Trevor Tweeten did a documentary with a MWIR thermal camera that is heavily modified. There has been a post about the exact camera being sold.

Trevor Tweeten is only the cinematographer behind some of the work. Richard Mosse is the director, video timestamp 7:29 about the thermal camera.Incoming is the video project and Heat Maps are the stills. The stills are really interesting because, he makes use of massive panoramas. At the time of editing this entry - some are still WIP and need level adjustments. The MWIR images are stunning to be, I would like to see the whole piece in some exhibition.


BBC used a different imaging system for their production. There is a review for this system if you want to know more.

E#1 - fixed one dead link.

E#2 - added Richard Mosse

E#3 - fixed the same link once more...

[Vipitis]

Okay, I have had some deeper conversation about music video art direction somewhere else and found a music video shot with a thermal camera, it struck me because I remembered a feature story from FLIR about a music video shot on their cameras. A quick search and I found a few:


let's start with the one I found while searching something else.

Warwick Field is a cinematographer, together with director Natasha Pincus he has worked on several music videos. One of them is Born For The Nightlife by Declan and The Antics. On the website he notes that it was shot with a FLIR camera and recorded in ProRes on a recorder. ProRes is a video codec from Apple, it is 10bit and comes in various compression levels. The video appears to be interlaced. It is shot in the "rainbow" palette.

Rayn Staake has directed several music videos and also some comercials. He experiments with different visual tricks so check out his other work as well. For the music video My Love by Route 94 he worked with Adam Donald. They used a FLIR SC8200 camera with a Pix240 recorder. In this article you can read a little about the technical aspects of this production. They used the Iron palette and controlled the low and high point of the temperature range to make the background black.

E:I found another interview that gives similar information and 3 images showing the camera and settings: 1, 2, 3;

Thomas Kirk aparently shot the video for Stockholm Syndrome by Muse. The only real information I was able to find on this video is a fanwiki without any sources. It states that they rented a camera and shot this in a warehouse, inspired by the movie Predator. It uses a rain like palette and is very blurry.

Black Lake is on the the production company that produced the music video Infrared by Bassnectar. It is really hard to find information on this video shoot, but looks like you were able to sign up for it - while they already had part of it. The video material is also used for the stage live visuals. They used a FLIR camera and the iron palette, extreme retiming and flickering as it is used in some music videos.

Nor really a music video, but noteable. In 2017 Thirty Seconds to mars performed Walk On Water live at the MTV Video Music Awards. It was shot by two FLIR SC8300 and two A8303. They used custom software by MoviTHERM to adjust the palette scaling live. From the BTS footage you can see that they use a palette called 1234, but it looked like an adjusted Lava palette to me.

Jaron Albertin directed the music video Our Hell by Emily Hains & The Soft Skeleton. It was shot with a FLIR A8303sc in greyscale white hot.

Mary Wigmore directed the music video Midnight by Coldplay. According to FLIR they used a FLIR SC 8303 in greyscale with added blue and further visual effects.

Hiro Murai directed several awesome music videos with Larkin Seiple. One of them is . They used FLIR SC8313 in greyscale white hot.


E#2 - added more information, still need to fix the formatting to stop those youtube links form autoembedding and hiding the text inside the hyperlink: someone help me.

[Vipitis]

Oh God, the formatting is horrible in the post above. If anyone knows how to stop YouTube hotlinks from Auto embedding, please let me know so I can fix that.

So I came across another music video on Instagram of all places.

Theo Davies directed parts of a music video for that were shot on a FLIR T1020 I believe. They used an iron palette, but intercut two different fakecolor application scales it looks to me. You can find the full video on YouTube. NSFW

[cdev]

Hot!

[Vipitis]

while I am maintaining this thread by fixing, rectifying and adding information to earlier posts. I came across at least two more music videos that make use for thermal cameras.

here is two other music videos that make use of some thermal imaging. I won't compile any information for these:

[Vipitis]

I just said two, screw that, I got four already.

The first one is really interesting. From 1980: David Mallet directed the Music video for . The album cover art by Roy Adzak is also shot with a "thermocam"  This is ancient technology, maybe someone can help me here.

The next one is very sparse in terms of information. The only bit I could find is that Marten de Thurah directed the music video for In Peak Fitness Condition by Spleen United. It is from 2005 so the technology is old, they use various palettes, show people working out as well as other shots of everyday life like science experiments, dancing, traffic and of course closeup of animals that we see in most of these videos. I am looking for more information for this one and will try to contact the director.

This is a cool one. Oscar Hudson directed the video for Holy Ghost by Young Fathers with DP RUBEN WOODIN DECHAMPS. They used a long range military camera provided by Silent Sentinel. An interview says this has been shot from 300m distance, and the camera was difficult to operate. The music video has been nominated for an 2018 UKMVA but did not win. It really shows the power of long range survalliance cameras. They use a black hot palette and show a man digging up dead bodies, a man burning, some animals and lots of other people. It has to bee my new favorite for the use of blackhot with all those detailed views of the people.

The same DP also shot Trapped in the Net by Bat-Bike using a Flir with white hot palette. It mainly shows a man showering.

Spike Morris shot Ghost by The Horrors on a FLIR A8303SC MWIR camera. It uses blackhot palette and shows closeups images of bodies. There are some colorful elements mixed in towards the end.

Here is something different as well. A live performance by filmed in thermal, illuminated NIR and ampliffied night vision. This is from a live performance in complete darkness in some kind of promotion for a scent.

We are now in a time where information is everyhwere but nowhere to be found and collected. The music video for J'OUVERT by BROCKHAMPTON has been shot on a thermal camera. The menus are visible. Various palettes are used. The album cover art for iridescence also features cover art shot on thermal camera. I found an

that shows a FLIR T1020?

And finally: Eoghan Kidney directed The Leopard by We Cut Corners. I am not sure what cameras are used here, it is various palettes but the overlays hint towards FLIR. Video shows people performing the song as well as close ups of animals.

That's it for now. I made a YouTube playlist with all the videos I was able to find on YouTube. I will rank them in order of how I like them.
On Vimeo I found even more art projects using thermal videos, mainly video installations. I will write about them in the future.

E: fixed a video link that was removed on youtube(at least for me). I still need help to stop YouTube links from autoembeddinga video. On my preview it looks mostly alright.

[Ultrapurple]

Wow - there's some very interesting, creative stuff. Well found. Whilst I can't say all the music is entirely to my taste, shutting the sound down and concentrating on the visual is a worthwhile experience.

As a concept, I rather liked the concert in darkness. The mix of different IR technologies and wavelengths appeals to me. And the Emotional Rescue video just sows how far we've come in a few short years. I have no idea what the gear used for that video cost (even to hire) at that time but it was probably state of the art and a technological marvel that they could get moving images! Has anyone idea why the video is so flickery? I imagine it's due to the lower frame rate of the thermal camera but it looks as though there's only an image every other frame, not what I'd normally expect to see with a frame rate mismatch. Any thoughts?

[Vipitis]

okay, still need someone to guide me through fixing the embedded youtube videos.

I said before that there are multiple video installation art projects found on Vimeo when you look through it. But I don't want to spent hours writing a single post again.

here is something different: A group of German artist went out in Stuttgart and painted graffiti with cold water to image it through a thermal camera. They seem to be sponsored by testo. Sadly the facebook and website is gone so only the YouTube channel remains. In the interview they said that it was difficult to work with different canvases and concrete on a warm day is the best. You need tow work in a group and go by memory as you can't see what you are painting. Doing it in a public location drew many eyes.

Here is a demo video with a few more found on the channel: https://youtu.be/zV_4fFcoFAI

[eKretz]

That's pretty cool. Too bad all the graffiti artists don't work this way! Although some actually do create some brilliant works, their choice of canvas often leaves a bit to be desired.

[Vipitis]

So, I edited some post near the top recently. Mainly fixing links and adding Richard Mosse to the Trevor Tweeten entry.

Adam Sébireis photographer and videographer. He made several projects with thermal cameras. For climate change awareness and a video installation that showed projected video footage and live footage of a . NSFW warning on some of the videos found on the side.

[eKretz]

Password required?

[Vipitis]

At the bottom of the link.
thermals

[eKretz]

Interesting video.  Did you see anywhere that mentioned what camera Adam was using? As far as I saw the descriptions just mentioned "high resolution thermal camera. "

[Vipitis]

been a while, but lets continue this thread I found some new stuff that fits here and goes deeper than usual.


Jeff Hutches shot and directed a video of a dance called . For all I can read it was shot on a FLIR camera using white hot and black hot palette. Mild NSFW warning. The way reflections look make me believe it may be MWIR.


Dheera Venkatraman shot a series of photographs in Iceland. He used a Seek RevealPro and took panoramas, exported raw data as Hue and Saturation and applied that to a black and white image he shot with a normal digital camera. This sort of combination looks much better than we are used to from FLIR MSX or other fusion options. It is an eerie look that keeps a natural componenet. On their website are some fairly advanced computer graphics publications that may be interesting to some.



I will continue to look for more entries and keep this thread alive. but please let me know of a way to fix the auto embedded videos.

E #1: fixed some formatting.

[Vipitis]

I am still looking for interesting projects using thermal imaging for artistic purposes. I have recently looked into advertising and found some interesting projects. Sadly there seems to be only some websites that list a tiny bit of info about them. Feel free to submit your own findings as well and let me know if there is a way to stop videos from auto embedding...

* there will also be an edit to Adam Sébire in a bit as there are now public videos found on the site that need a mention.

Oxfam UK did run an ad campaign a few years ago. I found three of their posters named Dede, Muvida and Tendai that apparently got printed Billbaord size here. It looks like these images are taken with a common iron palette but than digitally altered to make one of the pictured bodies look much colder. Bright blue is usually not part of the iron palette and it does not look like it is a genuine in the first place.

oddly enough my reasearch let me to the Russian thermal camera manufacturer Astrohn and a blog post. I cannot find any further information on the campaign by the German Environmental Ministry they pictured. It looks completely made up to me and not like a real thermal image.


*Edit: small additions.

[eKretz]

Oh dear... The photos at the Russian blog are somewhat disturbing if you actually know what a thermal image color palette is supposed to represent. The later photos all appear to be of persons holding cold dead babies.

[Vipitis]

this post needs some new life, so I did some digging and found a something more. If you go to the playlist at the end of the post, you will notice that I added another unmentioned video to it. It is from a Live Boilerroom performance by Charlotte de Witte.
In the future there might be a post about album art and here is a little reference for myself, there seem to be multiple examples and I want to get some good information about the photographers behind it. To get into the October mood here is a "short film" from FLIR from a year ago.


Jiri Marschal directed a Slovakian rap music video . It seem to switch between two palettes and uses a custom user interface. I cannot deduce the camera used.


Full playlist of thermal music videos: link

[Vipitis]

there might be some upcoming posts about advertising campaigns, but I am still collecting stuff. here two of the "experiemental video" kind.


Martina Hoogland Ivanow did a "documentation" called Interbeing a trailer is available . It uses a white hot palette from a FLIR camera.

Ethan Proia created a video installation called Remnants. An excerpt is available . *website seems to be unavailable* It appears to use whitehot and blackhot palettes from what I assume is a cooled midwave camera.