Week 12 - 2015 in Photographs

Day 78

Another week dominated by buildings. And there are three black and whites. Once both were a rarity in my photography but they have become far more frequent. Buildings were harder to find than mountains in my day to day photographic jaunts. And black and white I really had to work at. My sister is the mistress of that and I stuck with color. Often outlandish color. I have had to work at the black and white.

What I would call noisy or busy subjects work very well with black and white. The church above was perfect for it. The absence of color allows the viewer to focus on the shapes and the shadows and textures. I also tried out black and white on the church below. I liked it better, however, with just a reduction of the saturation. There is too much flat, empty sky for black and white in my opinion. By reducing the saturation I essentially ended up with a sepia building against a pale blue sky.

When I was learning to do black and white I used to sneak up on it by playing with saturation in photo editing. I would try every photo I took to see if I liked it in black and white better than color.

Day 79

A book I read said noisy skies were best in black and white so the storm moving in photograph below was a natural. And I tried it out. However, I like the hint of blue in the opposing corners of this stormy sky. Trying photographs out in black and white made me appreciate color.

Day 80

Color is no long the default option. Also how to treat a photo in B&W has helped in enhancement of photographic subjects which are almost monochromatic like ranges of mountains.

Day 81

And some subjects just cry to be colorless if you will. Another article I read on black and white photography said the photographer needed to go out to specifically photograph black and white. And in film days you had to. I can remember loading up two camera - one with black and white film and one with color.

Aspens in winter and snow scenes are two subjects I have found where I set out to "see" them in black and white. Course with digital cameras and post processing on our computers the options are open forever.

Day 82

I took the photograph of the old barn thinking it would be a great black and white because of the tones on the rusting metal of the building. But color won out. The purple on the mountain picked up the purple in the shadows to well to delete it. A cloud filled sky with cloud shadows on the mountain might have totally changed the equation.

Day 83

This last photograph shows the "tin" roof and the texture the black and white treat brings out in it and the crumbling adobe. This old territorial building works very well in B&W even without a cloud in the sky. In fact in my humble opinion the clear sky enhances the foreground textures. And in color the sky's intense blue is echoed no where else in the photograph.

Day 84