Photographers use film that is sensitive to infrared rays to take pictures in places where there is no visible light.
IR light is longer in wavelength than visible light and focuses differently. Regular photographic lenses are made for visible light photography without any regard to what happens when photographing out of band light like IR. Therefore each lens design and focal length, even each focal length within a zoom lens will focus IR light differently.
Hence, infrared light is used for taking pictures in the dark.