Barnaby Attwell is a Cornwall-based artist whose works include infrared photography. He has produced a book, Welcome to St. Decay, which "features Cornwall’s abundant, abandoned mining architecture contrasted with nature’s gradual but inevitable reclamation" (Attwell, 2024a). Attwell focuses on the numerous engine houses scattered across the Cornish mining landscape, stating that "these engine houses are as grand, important and beautiful as any cathedral or castle and deserve to be celebrated" (Attwell, 2024b). His use of infrared reveals the hidden beauty of this vital part of Cornish heritage, renewing interest in Cornwall's rich mining history.
Figure 1 depicts one of the most iconic locations for photographers in Cornwall: the engine houses at Wheal Coates. This has also been my location of choice for my previous infrared project and my recent photographs of the Northern Lights. Attwell's framing of this image is familiar to photographers and visitors alike, but shown in infrared, Wheal Coates stands against a surreal, alien landscape of yellow and purple. Figure 2 uses a similar bold yellow in the vegetation around the collapsing structure at Botallack. However, instead of a purple sky, Attwell has chosen a more natural blue, creating a somewhat more terrestrial atmosphere while still drawing the audience into an unfamiliar place. The symmetry of this image invites us to explore the dark corridors of the crumbling building encased in acrid yellow grass.
The use of vibrant colour is a technique that Attwell employs throughout his body of work. Infrared light is invisible to the human eye, and when recorded by a camera, it is rendered in a way we can see. This may appear as white or as another "false" colour, which can then be manipulated by the photographer. Attwell discusses his desire to carefully craft his images by stating, "Although I generally embrace digital technology, I’m anti the instant results culture of smartphones and Instagram. I like a process" (Attwell, 2024a). A key part of his process is the use of false colour, as seen in Figure 3. When an infrared photo is taken with a filter that allows some visible light, skies often turn red and foliage a ghostly blue. The hues can then be altered in Photoshop by channel-swapping or adjusting a hue and saturation layer. The chimney in Figure 3 remains neutral, contrasting with the green sky and purple vegetation, further separating the natural and man-made aspects of the landscape.
Conversely, the colours in Figure 4 are much more desaturated and subdued. By using a filter that cuts out the majority of visible light or by carefully editing the image in Photoshop, Attwell has created an atmosphere that is "ethereal, otherworldly and surreal" as he "reveals the invisible" (Attwell, 2023). This style of image evokes a more melancholic feel; instead of transporting the audience to another world, it takes us back in time. It feels as though we are looking at an old photograph of the mines at Heartlands as they appeared in their prime. I aim to achieve this level of reflection in my audience through my work, so I may employ a similar technique of desaturating my photos of crumbling engine houses. Additionally, I plan to find an archival image of an engine house and merge it with an infrared photo I will take of the same building. It will be interesting to experiment with channel-swapping and desaturating my composite to see what works best.
One of the most identifiable landmarks in Cornwall, Attwell's representation of the Eden Project looks alien and surreal (Figure 5). If it were not so famous, one could easily think this was a photo of a human settlement on Mars! Attwell "noticed the most effective infrared photos combine the natural with the man made" (Attwell, 2024a), and this photo of Eden captures that juxtaposition perfectly. The man-made domes stand out as cold, plastic bubbles amid the saturated warmth of the magenta foliage, evoking a sense of mystery and wonder in the audience.
Figure 6 (above) depicts the magnificent Roche Rock as seen in infrared. Here, Attwell has created an image with an almost volcanic-like intensity. The castle and rocks remain their usual neutral colour, but the grass and trees are a vibrant orange, almost swallowing up the monument in flames. Decades earlier, Simon Marsden also took an infrared photograph of Roche Rock, shown above in Figure 7 (The Marsden Archive, n.d.). It is fascinating to see the differences between their styles, highlighting the versatility of infrared photography. Attwell's digital photo uses bold colours to emphasise how nature is reclaiming the old man-made structure, while Marsden's analogue image is monochrome, developed with selective dodging and burning to create a ghostly aura.
As I will also be taking my photos in Cornwall, I am excited to develop my own style and see what fresh perspective I can bring to these iconic locations represented in infrared. Roche Rock may not be accessible to me for this project, but I look forward to exploring the (accessible) Cornish landscape in search of different representations of loss. While Attwell's technique of using strongly saturated false colours might not suit my solemn theme, it has been useful to see the range of effects that can be achieved when editing infrared images. I plan to use channel-swapping as this is a very common technique among infrared photographers, but I will keep my colours more muted to align with the overall mood of my work.
References
Attwell, B. (2023) From Wood to Mosse: a brief history of infrared photography, BARNFLAKES. Available at: https://www.barnflakes.com/blog/from-wood-to-mosse-a-brief-history-of-infrared-photography (Accessed: 20 February 2024).
Attwell, B. (2024a) Infrared Photography, BARNFLAKES. Available at: https://www.barnflakes.com/work/infrared-photography (Accessed: 20 February 2024).
Attwell, B. (2024b) Welcome to St. Decay, BARNFLAKES. Available at: https://www.barnflakes.com/barndoor-books/welcome-to-st-decay (Accessed: 20 February 2024).
The Marsden Archive (no date) The Hermit’s Chapel, Roche Rock, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, England, 1975-1989, The Marsden Archive :: The Picture Library. Available at: https://www.marsdenarchive.com/library/preview.php?id=00000313 (Accessed: 20 February 2024).
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