A digital false-color practice

Dakota
Chrome

Familiar western ground, translated through wavelengths and color relationships the eye does not ordinarily see.

False color

Color as interpretation.

False-color photography maps captured wavelengths into colors chosen for visibility and meaning rather than literal resemblance. The result can reveal differences in vegetation, material, atmosphere, and reflected light that conventional color photography compresses into the familiar.

DakotaChrome begins in-camera with a digitally modified infrared camera and carefully selected optical filters. From there, Chris Kirsch has methodically developed a distinctive palette for the Black Hills, Yellowstone, and the northern plains—keeping recognizable skies, structures, and animals in tension with red, pink, and magenta foliage.

A line of influence

From surveillance film to a language of place.

Kodak Aerochrome was an infrared-sensitive false-color reversal film developed for aerial reconnaissance and remote sensing. By assigning reflected near-infrared light to visible color, it could separate living vegetation from camouflage and often rendered green landscapes in saturated crimson, lavender, and hot pink.

Richard Mosse’s Infra and The Enclave, made in the Democratic Republic of Congo with discontinued Aerochrome, showed how that beautiful and historically charged material could complicate the way conflict is seen. That work became an important inspiration for Chris’s pursuit of false-color photography—an influence acknowledged here, not a claim that the two practices are the same.

Historical reference: Richard Mosse, Infra: Images from Eastern Congo, Pulitzer Center ↗

Aerochrome / DakotaChrome

Related language. Different process.

DakotaChrome is not Kodak film and is not presented as a one-click Aerochrome emulation.

Capture

Aerochrome is an analog film emulsion whose layers respond to visible and near-infrared light. DakotaChrome is digitally captured with a modified sensor and a considered set of physical filters.

Palette

Aerochrome’s color relationships are materially tied to a particular discontinued stock and filtration. DakotaChrome uses a custom-built palette with greater control over tonal separation, retained natural color, and the balance between subject and foliage.

Place

Aerochrome began as a technical imaging material. DakotaChrome is an authored body of work shaped around the wildlife, landmarks, weather, and open terrain of the American West.