Otherworldly winners of the Life in Another Light infrared photography competition

First place winner in the Infrared Color category of the Life in Another Light competition – The Watchman. (Credit: Blake Rudis).

Life in Another Light is a photo competition that focuses solely on the spectacular art of infrared photography. The gorgeous spread of winning images recently announced in this inaugural competition highlights the astonishing beauty of photography that experiments with wavelengths of light our eyes cannot see.

Our eyes can only see a quite narrow wavelength of light. Referred to as the “visible light” spectrum, this usually spans the wavelengths between around 380 and 700 nanometers. Above 700 nanometers is a spectrum referred to as infrared, and most infrared photography is concerned with capturing the narrow band of wavelengths between 700 and 1,000 nanometers – usually dubbed “near-infrared”, so as to separate it from the longer infrared wavelengths more associated with thermal imaging.

Third Prize winner, as part of the Photo Essay category, a collection called Invisible Paris

This new photo contest focusing on infrared imagery is run by Kolari Vision, a company dedicated to converting digital cameras into being able to capture a wider spectrum of light. Despite being in its first year, interest in the competition surprised all involved with nearly 3,000 submissions received from just under 500 photographers.

“We wanted this event to gather up truly great examples of what can be done with Infrared photography as an artistic medium,” says Pat Nadolski from Kolari Vision. “Since creative IR photos aren’t very prevalent in the professional photography world yet, we wanted to create a place to see what the best IR shots look like and how to use alternative wavelengths of light creatively and as a form of storytelling. We also wanted to give visible light shooters a chance to win some equipment to get started with shooting in another wavelength of light. This was a truly global contest and the winners are from the US, UK, India, Russia, France, Italy, Serbia, Germany, Austria, Egypt, Hong Kong.”

Overall Grand Prize winner, as part of the Photo Essay category, a collection called Utah

Entries spanned five categories: Landscape, Black and White, Color Infrared, Portrait and Photo Essay. The last category, involving collections of at least 10 photographs that tell a complete story, generated a single grand prize winner. This year the overall winner was Luciano Demasi’s collection, Utah, which turned a familiar desert landscape into a colorful alien wonderland.

Take a look through our gallery featuring all the winners and honorable mentions.

Source: Kolari Vision