Dark Side Of The Moon Poster (1973 color IR photo)

[lonesome_dave]

Recently the 50th anniversary of the release of Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon was observed. Remember that poster insert that came with the original LP?

 

 

If you look at the original full size Dark Side poster you can see reddish weeds in the foreground soil which really gives away that it was color IR. (I can't post a hi-res version here because I'm sure it's still copyrighted).

 

I realized at the time it was probably a false-color infrared photo as it looked rather similar to this one I took at White Sands NM on Ektachrome IR with a #21 orange filter in the Spring of 1973.

 

 

From what I can gather on the internet the poster photo was taken by Storm Thorgerson (PF's longtime graphic arts guy) while visiting the Giza pyramids. What I have never seen is an explanation of of how the image was made. I believe it likely was taken on Kodak Ektachrome Infrared (or Infrared Aerochrome 2443) with an orange or light red filter.

 

Does anyone have any more about this?

[dabateman]

Only found what Wikipedia currently says: 

"One poster bore pictures of the band in concert, overlaid with scattered letters to form PINK FLOYD, and the other an infrared photograph of the Great Pyramids of Giza, created by Powell and Thorgerson."

[Adrian]

I cannot comment on the IR image, but can say I feel enormously privileged to have been taught by Storm (and "Po" - Aubrey Powell) when I did my photography degree at Harrow School of Photography, where they were part-time tutors. One evening Storm asked me (as a student of scientific photography) how difficult it would be to photograph a prism, with a beam of light entering it, and a rainbow leaving it! As a student I was not able to do it, and I think the final image was created with an airbrush. A couple of my fellow students, went to the US with Storm and Po and couple of years later to help shoot the "burning man" image for the album "Wish you were here". Storm was always encouraging students to try different ideas, and experiment with photography. Good days!! 

[lonesome_dave]

Thanks for that story Adrian. Good days indeed.

 

I wanted to bring attention to the poster image as one of the earliest examples of color IR photography in popular media. I'm sure most folks thought it was just a manipulated image to show a psychedelic concept of what might be on the dark side of the moon. As if there was a dark side of the moon. I believe it was mostly a straight color IR photo with little or no adjustments.

 

That poster had a space on my wall for most of the 1970s.

[Adrian]

Another example is "Hot Rats" by Frank Zappa, earlier than Pink Floyd I think

 

On a similar topic, but different technique, the album, "Solid Air" by John Martin, featured a Schlieren image - the only example I know of!

[dabateman]

5 hours ago, Adrian said:

Another example is "Hot Rats" by Frank Zappa, earlier than Pink Floyd I think

 

On a similar topic, but different technique, the album, "Solid Air" by John Martin, featured a Schlieren image - the only example I know of!

Yes the soild air photo really works for the art:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_Air

 

The infrared image is going for more of a psychedelic look:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Rats

[dabateman]

Seems to have been a lot of Kodak Aerochrome in the 1969 and 1970 album releases.

With Keith Macmillian releases 

Colosseum's Valentyne Suite:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentyne_Suite

 

and Black Sabbath debut album: 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sabbath_(album)

 

Interested history here with Kodak Aerochrome: 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/black-sabbath-cover-art-keef-keith-macmillan-interview-951578/amp/

 

"For the look of the cover, he used Kodak infrared aerochrome film, which was designed for aerial photographs and gave the portrait its pinkish hue. (You can see a similar look on the first album cover he designed, Colosseum’s Valentyne Suite.) Later on, he did “a little bit of tweaking in the chemistry to get that slightly dark, surrealistic, evil kind of feeling to it.” Since it was sensitive film, he’d boil it and then freeze it, to make the image grainy and undefined."

[dabateman]

I am still trying to find the first. It may have been Jimmy Hendrix US release of Are you experienced, in August 1967.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_You_Experienced

 

"Ferris used what Egan described as "an infrared technique of his own invention which combined color reversal with heat signature", further enhancing the exotic nature of the image."

[lonesome_dave]

Wow, great research dabateman.

 

I agree Jimi Hendrix's 'Are You Experienced' 1967 U.S. album cover is a legit example and the earliest one here. The magenta foliage looks right and the skin tones are exactly how Ektachrome / Aerochrome Infrared would record them.

 

Frank Zappa's Hot Rats in 1969 looks like color IR as well.