This is my infrared camera that I use in authentication. It’s a normal over-the-counter Fuji digital camera, except it had the inside infrared blocking filter removed. As with x-ray machines, infrared cameras allow you to see through layers of paint on a painting. It shows a different layer of paint than an x-ray machine. It is also commonly used to identify alterations and restoration and to see writing that has nearly faded away with time and wear. Unlike x-ray machines that shoot dangerous radiation, infrared viewers are harmless as they detect radiation, or light, that is already there (at the infrared frequency) and transforms it to a visual image. As it’s an otherwise normal digital camera, you can snap the infrared image and download it onto your computer. Some non-human animals, including certain snakes, can see infrared light, but humans cannot and require a converter. Geese can see longwave ultraviolet light (commonly known as black light) that we cannot, and the black light is another tool authenticators use. As you can see, authentication and forgery detection involves looking an an item in different ways, including in ways outside our natural eyesight. X-rays can go as far as to identify the specific chemicals and their amounts in an item, such as in the paint on a painting.
If the topic intrigues you, the following is a link to a pdf primer to forensic light, covering visible, infrared and ultraviolet. It shows how it works, the history and interesting facts, and how you use can use the tools in forgery detection, arts and crafts (glow in the dark drawings and mobiles, infrared art photography) and more.
Forenensic Light: A Beginner’s Guide (87 pages, illustrated, pdf)
Hidden writing revealed on a 1922 game used baseball bat. The grease pen text, faded to unreadable to the naked eye but seen with the infrared camera, was written by a worker at the famed bat manufacturer Hillerich & Bradsby of Louisville Kentucky when the Philadelphia Athletics player returned the broken bat to receive new ones. Hillerich & Bradsby used the broken bat as the model to make the new ones, and kept it in their vaults. Bats with this type of manufacturer’s writing are often referred to as ‘side written’ (the writing is always along the side of the barrel)’ or ‘vault written.’ The text gives the player’s name, team and the date the bat was returned, and helps in authenticating the bat as game used by the player. Baseball bats, uniforms and other equipment shown to be used in Major League Baseball games fetch top dollar from collectors.
Infrared photo of my parents’ toy fox terrier, Jack. Frances Bacon-esque, no?
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Looking at Artifacts and Ideas 