Wimbledon 2017: Tennis in Infrared

Wimbledon has always been one of my favourite events to photograph. I have covered the tournament numerous times, yet it never fails to provide exciting creative possibilities. In 2017, I decided that Wimbledon was the perfect place to experiment with a technique that was completely new to me: infrared photography.

I had seen images taken by some landscape photographers with infrared and was intrigued by how it rendered colours, especially greens, in a really unusual fashion. Knowing Wimbledon was a sea of different greens, from the grass to the clubhouse covered in ivy, I thought it would be interesting to see what might happen. I also wanted to show such a familiar place in a very different, almost surreal way.

Rather than an infrared filter, I used a normal Canon 7D camera which had been specially adapted so as to only register infrared light. I paired this with old lenses, which lack the modern coatings designed to reduce infrared and flare. Whereas normal cameras form an image from visible light, infrared cameras detect infrared radiation or energy (heat) and convert it into an electronic signal, which produces the image. Also called thermographic cameras, they are often used by search and rescue teams and firefighters, in the military, in medicine, and for night photography more generally.