Abstract
MORE than a year ago, I received from Mr. L. Bloch, of the Ilford Research Laboratories, a number of photographs—‘couples’ of dark-skinned subjects, all or mostly negroes—taken by ordinary and by infra-red light. The difference in appearance is very remarkable: on one hand the normal photograph, on the other such striking modification in colour of face and often pattern of clothing that a close examination is necessary to realise that the two prints are photographs of the same subject. The most remarkable feature is that under the infra-red rays the normal dark skin of the negro appears of a waxy white pallor. This is so striking and renders the two photographs of the same face so unlike each other that the suggestion was made that the infrared photographs exhibited Mongoloid characters not obvious in the prints taken under normal conditions. This, however, is not so, nor are any Mongolian characters observable in the infra-red prints of a much longer series of negroes and other ‘coloured’ men which have recently been submitted to me. The idea perhaps originated in the somewhat deep-set appearance of the eyes seen in many subjects in the infra-red prints. Examination shows that this is an expression of the obliteration in the infra-red photographs of a considerable amount of the finer facial modelling, due largely to the loss of shadows and the finer gradations of tint. Those who have not a series of photographs for reference will best appreciate the change by examining a photograph published by Dr. S. O. Rawling*, in which oranges, apples, tomatoes, and dark cherries, on a plate with a polychrome design, appear as if the whole were modelled in pale-coloured wax, no trace of the design being visible.
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SELIGMAN, C. Infra-Red Photographs of Racial Types. Nature 133, 279–280 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/133279a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/133279a0