The casual viewer may eye this and do a double-take what with the combo of clouds and the island’s reflection. Wait, is that water? Indeed, it’s the calm, nearly wind-free waters of Crater Lake National Park, from which the ethereal Phantom Ship island emerges. 

We converted one of our mirrorless Canon cameras to full-spectrum, meaning it can detect visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light. Now we get to decide exactly which frequencies we want with a filter.

Most photos we see in our daily lives are “mere” reflections of our eyes’ ability to discern a narrow band of electromagnetic frequencies. Outside of that, ultraviolet with short wavelengths and infrared with long ones are visible to many other animals, but humans need special gear to detect this light.

This image, one of my favorites, rests at the intersection of this technology and a short and easy hike in Crater Lake National Park up to the Phantom Ship island overlook. Armed with a 720nm IR filter, we were able to filter out nearly all visible light, and the image you see here is made up of almost all infrared frequencies. Using specialized color profiles in Adobe Lightroom allows us mere humans to “see” this light in different ways.

Just because we don’t see something one particular way doesn’t mean others can’t or don’t.

Find this and more from Crater Lake National Park.