I had this idea of photographing the lunar type landscape of Lanzarote in infrared. I figured infrared would highlight the harshness and jaggedness of the lava rock. The dark burnt encrusted crumbling boulders that litter the landscape into the horizon. They are only met by the backdrop of volcanic mountains where they were originally spewed out from. These volcanos erupted several times over the last couple of centuries. Even quite recently the last encounter covered over 200 square kilometres of the island.
Practically nothing large can grow with the rocks themselves. So that just leave a prefect environment for lichen to thrive. Actually in fact there over 70 species of these tiny rock clingers living within the lava fields. The lichen are spotted quite easily via infrared photography due to their absorption of intra light because of the process photosynthesis. A few brushes grows as you can see in the first picture low which I used as a lead in.
The time of year being December allow thankfully for some clouds to add a bit of drama to the blue sky below.
The lichen appears in white dots under infrared light.
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