Craig Bettenhausen

  Japan in Florida (infrared 720nm)  The cleaning industry is fun to write about as a chemistry journalist. Of course, cleaning is a very chemical endeavor, and the companies that make cleaning products are more chemically savvy than most other consumer product firms. But it’s also a consumer-facing market for chemicals, so it has to respond to the changing and sometimes capricious trends emanating from the broad cultural zeitgeist.  That doesn’t quite mean the industry is blown in the wind. It has this demand floor built in, folks will only let their homes and businesses get so dirty. As a result, the cleaning world has some resilience even when economic conditions are hard, as they are now for several regions and economic sectors. I wrote about all that for C&EN here.  It’s a busy conference, but I snuck in some time to take photos too. I had my infrared-modified Canon M2 and a Canon M50. I want to like the M50, I love its small size and capable video capture. ...

As I type this, Baltimore is getting its first big snowstorm of the year. As of noon, about 5 inches has accumulated. So far, I'm chickening out from going out to take photos. A handful of days earlier, we got a preview though, just a light dusting. The leadership of my church had a meeting, so a 10-block walk was in the cards anyway. I brought my most weatherproof camera configuration, a 5D Mark III with a 100-400mm L lens.  That lens was kind of a splurge at about $500, but it has been great for photographing my kid's soccer league and it is weather sealed. There may come a day when my photography is cash neutral or even profitable, but at this stage I'm underwater by about $1,500. Which isn't too bad, I suppose. Snowboarding, automobiles, even golf would add up much faster.  That said, six of my art prints have now sold through the Print Pact, which is exciting and validating. Six actual humans have seen my prints in among art for sale and decided, "That is art ...

What you're looking at below is four different color renditions of the same scene. Three out of the four were shot using an infrared camera and a 720nm filter. Development programs like Lightroom default to assuming the image data is in normal human color, rendering everything in red and not showing much of the color differences. It's just data. By giving the software different instructions about how to interpret the colors, we can get the color and tone separation we want.  Infrared - 720nm filter with colors straight from the camera But as IR photo expert Rob Shea says, color isn't real. The choice of what rendered color the program maps onto the image data is arbitrary. I can pick what looks good for the scene, the vibe I want to convey, the textures and shapes I want to explore.  Here's a normal-color shot of the same scene One that I've been liking recently is to take the wavelengths reflected by chlorophyl, coming off of plants that would be green in normal vi...

 

SXSW is known for film, music, and comedy. Over the past couple of years though, I've been hearing more and more about SXSW as scientific conference. So this year, I talked C&EN into sending me to Austin. To read the feature article I wrote about the trip, visit cenm.ag/sxsw .  Here, please enjoy some of my favorite photos that I got, both of things related to chemistry and of my other exploration of the festival.  Moment of calm Infrared B&W To the Moon  (Artemis II astronauts Reid Wiseman, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen). Flash Tatt Infrared B&W Harvard/Smithsonian Astrophysicist, NBD Gender Fluid Infrared B&W Women in STEM Stare Staples Infrared B&W Early Start Rogan