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My long journey to accepting monochrome
kygarden
Registered Users Posts: 1,060 Major grins
I'll put the photos in this forum since they're a mix. Anyway....accepting monochrome...for myself I mean, personally. I've always admired some of the classic black and white images from Ansel Adams but I had always had the view that since it's modern times now, I would mostly just stick to color and there wasn't much need for black and white.
Well, after watching a documentary about Adams and listening to him discuss in-depth his opinion of 'post-processing' or editing or whatever you want to call it...I had the realization that (for me) it's really ok to take the liberty to heavily edit or dramatically alter any given photo to give a photo the look I want it to have. That's what Adams did. For some reason, I was always under the impression that he pretty much shot the photos the way we see them. But he didn't. He made the basic image with all the right subject matter included and the light that he wanted included and from that point, the rest was up to him in the darkroom and he sure did make big changes to his images. Often he'd go back to the same image a long time later and process it again in a totally different way (making it much darker or brighter than in the past edits, for example).
So after listening to him speak about this, I had a new desire to try black and white edits and to feel free to edit to suit my tastes. I have a habit of being very literal in photography and had mostly stuck to simple edits like correcting white balance and so on but leaving the scene mostly as I had seen it in real life.
First, here's a recent shot and an example of how I would normally process a photo...
(Everything is done in Adobe Lightroom, nothing else - from raw files)
And here's a few examples of what I've done (processing older photos) after I've been recently enlightened ;-) I even created a new gallery dedicated to monochrome:
http://www.thephotographyhobbyist.com/CREATIVE-OTHER-SUBJECTS/Monochrome/
Well, after watching a documentary about Adams and listening to him discuss in-depth his opinion of 'post-processing' or editing or whatever you want to call it...I had the realization that (for me) it's really ok to take the liberty to heavily edit or dramatically alter any given photo to give a photo the look I want it to have. That's what Adams did. For some reason, I was always under the impression that he pretty much shot the photos the way we see them. But he didn't. He made the basic image with all the right subject matter included and the light that he wanted included and from that point, the rest was up to him in the darkroom and he sure did make big changes to his images. Often he'd go back to the same image a long time later and process it again in a totally different way (making it much darker or brighter than in the past edits, for example).
So after listening to him speak about this, I had a new desire to try black and white edits and to feel free to edit to suit my tastes. I have a habit of being very literal in photography and had mostly stuck to simple edits like correcting white balance and so on but leaving the scene mostly as I had seen it in real life.
First, here's a recent shot and an example of how I would normally process a photo...
(Everything is done in Adobe Lightroom, nothing else - from raw files)
And here's a few examples of what I've done (processing older photos) after I've been recently enlightened ;-) I even created a new gallery dedicated to monochrome:
http://www.thephotographyhobbyist.com/CREATIVE-OTHER-SUBJECTS/Monochrome/
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image that I see after I've uploaded it.
No longer do I have to make that decision when I load my camera
with film. All images are initially color, but I can convert a copy of
that image to black and white and compare the effectiveness of
the two. If I choose to, I can do several variations in post.
http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/
But let's get back to you—clearly you have "gotten religion," lol. Your monochrome treatments absolutely show that you "get it." The last of the series is my personal fav, but overall, glad you joined the ranks of we monochrome warriors. Ha.
PS: Added later... have you done research into the Zone system, and do you have a monitor capable of fuel SRGB at least? Mentioning this, because in shots where you want full detail in the shadows, software that reveals Zone 0 (and the whole rest of the Zones), and a monitor that is decently calibrated, are real aids to monochrome post-processing.
"Conventional thinking is the ruin of our souls..." ~Rumi
_____________________________________________
My SmugMug Galleries
Most of these could use a touch more of white (Zone 10) seem slightly "muddy" to me.
Live the whole series, otherwise.
Don
'I was older then, I'm younger than that now' ....
My Blog | Q+ | Moderator, Lightroom Forums | My Amateur Smugmug Stuff | My Blurb book Rust and Whimsy. More Rust , FaceBook .
Respectfully Don, isn't Zone 10 reserved for specular highlights?
"Conventional thinking is the ruin of our souls..." ~Rumi
_____________________________________________
My SmugMug Galleries
zone system, either.
Don
'I was older then, I'm younger than that now' ....
My Blog | Q+ | Moderator, Lightroom Forums | My Amateur Smugmug Stuff | My Blurb book Rust and Whimsy. More Rust , FaceBook .
Agreed, though in Silver FX Pro, you can switch the loupe to a Zone System scale, and actually click zones to see them accented in your current session. :ivar
"Conventional thinking is the ruin of our souls..." ~Rumi
_____________________________________________
My SmugMug Galleries
Thanks everyone.
I heard about the zone system when watching some Ansel Adams videos. My pan right now is to continue as I always have, shooting for color scenes...but if I see something that somehow strikes me as a good candidate for monochrome, I'll convert it in Lightroom and play with it a little bit until I'm sure I either like it or hate it in B&W before I move on.