Working with Monochrome

On January 5, 2012January 5, 2012 By themichaellamcollectionIn One Way to Do it, Photography6 Comments

Just a little ramble from me, this is not instructional in the literal sense. A fellow blogger and photographer, Nigel (or greysqrl) always asked me to write a tutorial on my monochromes and specifically my black and white photographs, but I’ve never felt that I had an “art” to it or a specific sequence of steps in the methodology to really do a tutorial type of blog, so I thought that at least I can do some rambling or musing on the subject.

Back when I shot with the Canon S5 Super-Zoom bridge camera (basically a hyped-up point-and-shoot) there were several colour modes including black and white and sepia, so I had disciplined myself to taking the scenes that appealed to me in these aspects in those modes, so I never had a full-coloured version of the photograph for any sort of comparison. So for me, the idea of a scene being in monochrome always started out before I pressed the shutter-button.

After I started using a DSLR (for now the Canon T1i or 500D) I learnt about post-processing further, using RAW images, etc. Now, I still consider many scenes in monochrome and earmark them for that specific type of processing later, but I also change my mind about some scenes that were not considered for monochrome initially.

What makes a good monochrome image? I really never thought about it, I just “feel” that some scenes make better monochromes than others. I am sure that as I continue my photographic journey I will learn more about what actually makes a good monochrome, to me it’s a “old” looking scene, or a scene with high contrasts, or in many of Nikhil’s cases one with lots of texture 🙂

How do I process a monochrome image? Since all my current images start out as full coloured, it is usually that “feel” that helps me select the ones for monochrome, either that or the new method of processing as colour and then it doesn’t quite come out the way I want and I send it over to monochrome just to see what would happen 🙂

I use Lightroom as my primary image processing and workflow application, but the majority of my monochromes are done in Nik Silver Efex (after some processing in Lightroom). I take each photo on its own merit, some need to be treated softly while others need to be more contrasty and structured. Nik Silver Efex has a range of presets that you can view easily and then do your own fine-tuning.

With scenes that have clouds (I seem to have many of those now) I always go for bringing out or enhancing the detail in the clouds. The dynamic range captured using a single exposure is not (always) a true representation of what the human eyes saw or can see. Often I would look at the scene and see the nice detail in the foreground, then look up and see the layering in the clouds, but when the photograph is taken I lose some detail, and In post=processing I try to retain that detail that I saw.

This particular photo was not intended as a monochrome image, the upper portion of the boat (or lower portion in the image, since the boat is upside down) was yellow and I had initially intended to emphasize that, but it didn’t work out as planned.

2011 Deck – Week 36

On December 9, 2011December 9, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography2 Comments

Since the members of the Guyana Photographers (Facebook Group) started doing PhotoWalks it has provided me with other opportunities to get out and do some photography, as well as to see and admire the photos emerging in the group from these walks, there truly is a lot of enthusiasm and talent among the members.

On one of those walks (this one was to the villages of Good Hope and Triumph, I got what I thought were good shots, then I saw what others put up and realized that mine were all just OK 🙂

I fell into the trap set by all the enthusiasm and put my better shots onto the Group’s Page, without thinking to reserve at least one for this post, so a-hunting I went through my images for one that I could use. You can check out some of the photos from the group in the 3rd Photo Walk album Facebook.

2011 Deck – Week 31

On September 16, 2011September 16, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography12 Comments

I struggled with this selection, partially because I was busy, and also because I took quite a few photos that week (mainly a wedding), did some sight-seeing where the taxi-driver afforded me some “drive-by shooting” of some scenes 🙂

I could have stopped him to get better shots, but time is important and I didn’t want to waste his, but it did form a base of where I’d like to see when I go back!

The shot I chose is more Nikhil’s type of subject, but it was one even I couldn’t resist. In the village of Suddie, this tank sits near the Police building and the Hospital, you just don’t see these tanks much these days.

I didn’t do much processing on this one, a crop to remove some distracting portions and to center it, and some added black, contrast and clarity. Oops, that sounds like a lot to some people.

This tank is in remarkably good condition for its age, of course, I drew some strange stares from the people in the area, especially the security guards at the hospital 🙂

2011 Deck – Week 21

On June 2, 2011June 8, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography14 Comments

If you’re going to do a project then you should at least make every effort to keep it up, right? I seem to be lagging behind too much, something’s got to give! Anyway, I found a few minutes and I decided to post my image for last week before it got too late.

Finding the time to post on the blog is one thing, but apparently things are getting to the point where finding the time to get the photograph itself is becoming a challenge, definitely not good. Last week I took four photographs, yes four, F-O-U-R, 4! and three of them were of the same scene, so that left me with a choice between two images. Bah! I can’t let this happen again.

This is not a great image, it probably isn’t a good one, but it’s what I have and since I am sticking to the rules I made myself, I have to choose one of those images I took within the week, 🙂 I beg forgiveness in advance.

2011 Deck – Week 20

On May 20, 2011May 20, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography6 Comments

I thought to myself this week that maybe I should just put up as good a photo as I could get up to today before I let another week pass by and then I would be behind again in this project… and since I went with Nikhil to the Kingston Promenade yesterday photo-hunting, I came back with a few decent shots, so here’s to the twentieth week of the year.

It was one of those uninspiring afternoons, nothing seemed to leap out at you, at least not photographically. I did get a shot of a crab before he scampered back into his “hole” (is there a name for those?), but he isn’t super-sharp, I may yet post it up. The beach was littered as usual, and the sun was shining so brightly I almost couldn’t look eastwards, and the glare off the water and sand wasn’t helping any either.

Fortunately I did manage to see through the glare enough to spot a youngster playing near the waves, as it turned out I got more than I thought 🙂

2011 Deck – Week 6

On February 12, 2011February 12, 2011 By themichaellamcollectionIn 2011 Deck, Photography18 Comments

Strange enough I had a totally different image in mind for this week’s Deck Photo, I hadn’t processed the images as yet, but I had sorted out in my mind the images I had taken and had somewhat settled on a particular image. On importing the photos into Lightroom, I saw one that I had dismissed mentally, it was taken hastily and I did not think that I had captured what I wanted. As I looked at it I realised that it had some merit, and as I processed the image it grew on me to the point that I haven’t bothered to process the rest until I finish this blog post 🙂

It was a nice lazy afternoon at Good Hope on the East Coast of Demerara, and I was probably on my fourth Cuba Libre, and I saw them coming down the street, barely time to put down my glass (carefully), go for my camera bag, take out the camera, frame up and shoot. There was no second take, just the one shot.