black & white | RF-Photography

Seeing in Black & White Pt IV

We’ve talked about how various colours convert to different shades of grey in earlier instalments of this article series. We’ve also talked about the importance of certain colours in greyscale and about the different components that make up colour – and thus grey – in the third part of the series.

In this part of the series, we’re going to take a look at something more subtle but nonetheless relevant. That’s white balance. Can the choice of white balance affect a conversion from colour to black & white? It definitely can. This is something that film shooters have known for years, that the colour of the light in the scene would have an impact on the effect of colour contrast filters used on the lens and rendered on the film. Intuitively it makes sense. Continue reading →

Seeing in Black & White Pt III

Commentary Seeing Series Tutorial

In the first part of this series, I wrote about training the eye to ‘see’ in greyscale tones by converting colour into shades of grey. In this part of the series, we’ll break that down a little further.

In that first part of the series, we looked at how colours can translate into the same or similar shades of grey. We also talked about the use of colour contrast filters with black & white film to block or pass certain wavelengths (colours) of light to expose the film differently and create tonal contrast. We also looked at how this can be mimiced in the digital darkroom with the available tools. Continue reading →

Seeing in Black & White Pt II

Commentary Seeing Series Tutorial

This is a follow up to the article from last week on seeing in black and white for those who might struggle a bit with creating black and white imagery in a colour world.

In that article, we looked at some of the basics of colour conversion to greyscale and some of the difficulties in creating the desired separation of grey tones and contrast. We also started to look at some of the ways in which we need to manipulate one colour (e.g., yellow) to affect another (e.g., green). Continue reading →

Seeing in Black & White

Commentary Seeing Series Tutorial

With all due respect to the great songwriter Paul Simon, everything doesn’t look worse in black and white.

So what do I mean by ‘seeing in black and white’? Well, black and white photography is different from colour photography. Some might say, ‘Well, duh!’ But it is. It requires a different way of seeing and viewing. I’ve heard some people say they just can’t get black and white down. Everything just looks muddled. Why is that? It’s because in the technicolour world we live in colour provides visual interest and contrast. In black & white, or rather shades of grey, there is no direct colour to provide that contrast. In most cases, the contrast has to be created. This requires time to learn and requires a different way of seeing. Continue reading →

The Power of Lightroom, Redux

Commentary Tools

This is a follow up to my original Power of Lightroom article from just about a year ago. Lightroom has been improved with each new version and while the black and white capability and the Adjustment Brush capability have been in place before v3, I thought I’d take the opportunity to toss in a new article on Lightroom for black and white. Probably 80% of what I do with editing photos, I do now with Lightroom. There are still some things I use Photoshop for and I’d never give up Photoshop but Lightroom is a wonderful piece of software. Continue reading →

Why Emulate Film?

Commentary

A simple question. Does it have a simple answer? Is there a single answer?

Digital photography has taken hold. It’s established. It has supplanted film for the most part.

In the (relative) earlier days of digital, there was a trend to try to replicate the look of certain colour films – Velvia being, I think, the most common. There were actions and recipes available for creating the ‘look’ of different film stocks. These were popular for a short while but eventually receded into the background – for the most part. People came to understand and realise that digital was different from film – for the most part. People came to embrace that fact and deal with digital capture on its own terms – for the most part.

For the most part? Yep. For the most part. One area where there still seems to be a desire to cling to the analogue world is with respect to black and white photography. There still seems to be a yearning on the part of a good many people to try to replicate the look of a favourite b&w film. There are still plugins, actions, recipes and so forth that attempt (some better than others) to replicate or emulate the look of different black and white films. Why? Continue reading →

Website Ported to WordPress Format

Announcements Commentary

I’ve completed the transition from a standard website format to the WordPress format for the website. Use the nav. bar at the top or the page menu on the right sidebar to navigate through the site.

The Lighthouse section from the old site has also been moved over and will be added to over time.

A new page for Commercial photography and services has been added including a selection of images from past assignments.