I have a confession to make. One I didn’t see coming. One that, frankly, kind of betrays the entire foundation of how I see the photographic world. And yet, here we are.
I am hopelessly obsessed with the Infrared tab in the Firstlight app.
If you’ve followed my journey for any stretch of time, you know this isn’t exactly in character for me. I am, by nature and nurture, a realist. A naturalist. A modernist. A minimalist. A purist. I don’t chase trends, filters, AI, or Instagram fads. I don’t manufacture moments in post. I don’t crank the saturation to 11 and call it a vibe. I have little patience for visual theatrics.
I like my photos clean, clear, true. I want them to feel like photographs, not digital illustrations. When someone looks at one of my images, I want them to feel what I felt standing there, pressing the shutter. Not be distracted by what I did to the file afterward.
You’ve heard me say it before: I’m a hunter, not a farmer. A snapper, not a tapper. I don’t build images; I find them. I respond to the world as it is, not as I wish it would look on screen. My editing style is fast, intuitive, minimal. Seconds, not minutes. If I’m tweaking something for longer than 10 seconds, it’s a red flag the photo probably wasn’t worth saving to begin with.
So what the hell am I doing… dragging my thumb over to that dreamy, nostalgic, wildly unnatural Infrared setting… again and again and again?
Every time I fire up the Firstlight app, that damn tab is whispering my name. Tapping me on the shoulder. Promising me nothing short of an alternate universe. And the worst part is—it delivers.
I have thousands of Firstlight-authored Infrared photos. Probably more than any other style or setting in my camera roll at the moment. It’s become a quiet obsession. A little visual guilty pleasure. I ride my bike around the lake and fire away—scene after scene cloaked in that signature reddish-pink hue. I should feel bad about it. But I don’t. Not even a little.
What Is It About Infrared?
To be clear, Firstlight’s “Infrared” setting isn’t true infrared. It’s not using a modified sensor or capturing non-visible wavelengths of light. It’s a filter—a simulation. But it feels like something more. And that’s what makes it so seductive.
The colors it gives you don’t exist in the real world. And yet they somehow still feel right. Like you’ve been dropped into a dream. A memory. A distant planet that looks suspiciously like your neighborhood on a late summer afternoon. It’s cinematic. Poetic. Emotional.
I honestly can’t explain it scientifically. Nor do I care to. Because it’s not a technical love—it’s an emotional one.
I look at these infrared images and I’m transported. Not to a specific time or place, but to a mood. A feeling. That slightly melancholy hum of nostalgia. That surreal softness of memory. That sense of standing outside the ordinary world, even if the photo was taken at the most ordinary spot on my bike route.
There’s something romantic and ghostly about these images. They don’t hit you with realism—they haunt you with something deeper. A kind of emotional logic.
Isn’t This Cheating?
Honestly, maybe.
If I were a purist in the fundamentalist sense, I’d probably delete the entire Firstlight app out of principle. I’d roll my eyes at anyone using “effects” or “looks.” But I’ve lived long enough—and shot long enough—to know that hard lines in art are often the least helpful.
There’s a difference between chasing fake shit and embracing wonder.
What bothers me about most “edited” photos is the intent behind them. The performance. The manipulation. The sense that the photo has become more about impressing a viewer than expressing a vision.
But that’s not what happens with Infrared. This isn’t showboating. This isn’t fakery. This is play. It’s emotion. It’s atmosphere.
It doesn’t say “look how epic this sunset was.” It says “look how this moment felt to me—like a memory I haven’t even made yet.”
Big difference.
Tradition Meets Temptation
I still consider myself a traditional photographer. I care about light, line, composition, timing, patience, presence. I care about seeing before shooting. I believe that most of what makes a good photo has nothing to do with gear and everything to do with the human behind it.
But I also believe in intuition. In following the itch. And lately, that itch leads me straight to the Infrared tab.
And maybe this is the beauty of modern photography—especially mobile photography. We get to try things on. We get to experiment, evolve, flirt with aesthetic outliers without losing who we are. I can still be the guy who loves realness and minimal edits—and still fall head-over-heels for this dreamy digital hallucination that makes the world blush pink.
Photography is a way of seeing. But sometimes it’s also a way of re-seeing. A way of letting a familiar scene surprise you again. And nothing surprises me lately like Firstlight’s Infrared setting.
Riding the Loop
Most afternoons, I hop on my bike and cruise the trail around the lake. It’s my reset. My moving meditation. Same route, same water, same trees, same skyline. It should be boring. But it never is—especially now that I’ve invited Infrared into the ride.
I stop often. Sometimes too often. I point my iPhone at a tree I’ve passed a hundred times. A park bench. A dock. A ripple in the water. I tap Infrared. Snap. Snap again. Then ride on. It’s quick. It’s joyful. It’s not strategic. It’s just… what feels right.
The best part? When I look back later, these images don’t feel repetitive. They feel renewed. Familiar, but not quite. Like remembering a song you used to love but forgot the lyrics to. They have a strange and beautiful life of their own.
Permission to Play
So maybe this whole piece is just me giving myself permission. Or maybe it’s a love letter to something I didn’t know I needed.
The truth is, I don’t like most filters. I find them cheesy, gimmicky, or just plain ugly. But Infrared in Firstlight? It’s none of those things.
It’s a tool I didn’t expect to love. A detour I didn’t plan to take. But one I now return to, again and again.
And maybe that’s the deeper point here. Sometimes the best parts of the photographic journey are the ones that don’t fit your brand. That don’t make perfect sense. That start with a whisper and end with a thousand new ways of seeing.
I still shoot real. I still teach presence. I still preach the power of natural light and minimal edits.
But somewhere in that truth-loving, realism-chasing heart of mine… there’s now a pink-tinted trail winding through the trees.
And I’m not sorry about it.
Not one bit.
Ride with me.
Click.
Jack
