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Infrared Experiments, Day Four, Part Three  -  Is it ok to be an artist? This is a question I have struggled with for a long time... and it comes to a head when dealing with a medium that lends itself to obvious artistic expression. I became interested in IR photography because it, when developed fully, can be a great investigative tool... but sometimes the images it produces are so innately beautiful that I am tempted to go all out and try to become an 'artist' with the camera. I know that anyone who has gone through art school would roll their eyes at the notion that some of these pictures are art -- and I readily admit that, like most people, I do not have the education that is needed to appreciate most examples of contemporary art -- but I am instinctively driven to state that there is something profoundly stirring in seeing something like a tree or flower in a spectra that is normally invisible to humans. I guess a credentialed artist might consider such pictures a form of 'technical artisanship'...?

At any rate, I am interested in non-visual wavelength photography because it provides a new avenue for exploration. It allows me to record the invisible. Though by nature I want to call some of these shots 'art', I do not have pretenses to being anything other than an amateur documentary photographer.

James Dinnerville  

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