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grumpyman
Member
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# Posted: 28 Jan 08 17:49 - Edited by: grumpyman
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I have recently been toying more with black and white as have been slightly addicted to the contrasts thought id share some of them with you be glad of comments.
Maybe you could show me your favourites and tell me what made you choose the picture in black and white
 
 
 
 
 
Being playing with tones and accent colours hope you enjoy. look at them enlarged better view then.
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Vidar S
Member
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# Posted: 28 Jan 08 19:27 - Edited by: Vidar S
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I think you've seen my B&W, but your pictures is exactly the kind of B&W I like the most. Great work! Imo high contrast, but also a lot of grain/dust fits into most B&W pictures.
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geert geenen
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# Posted: 28 Jan 08 20:04
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beautiful photo's, grumpyman. i think b&w leads the viewer more to the substance of a subject (sometimes (often?), not always). colour can be very distracting (sometimes, etc.) here are a few of my b&w's:
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Ruden Fretsbo
Member
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# Posted: 28 Jan 08 20:50
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Hi grumpyman!
First of all thank you for opening this thread. B&W is my main obsession in photography, but also my bigger headache, because I think that is not an easy subject at all. I must say that I like very much the pictures that you posted, but as you asked for suggestions I will give you mine sincerely. I used to apply a very high contrast to my B&W pictures as you do with yours (you can see some in my portafolio)... the problem is that if you go too far away with the contrast then you have burn out highlights and completely black shadows, without any tonality in it. This makes quite a nice and spectacular result when you seee the picture in a screen, but when you print the picture, at home or at the laboratory, then the result is quite disappointing. So I begun to take care about the histogram everytime I edit in B&W, the same as working with color, to have a really good tonal range. For me this is the clue of b&w, even if sometimes a really high contrast suits very well to the subject, like in some of your pictures. So my suggestion would be no to go so far away with contrast and, as far as possible, not to force the histogram too much.
Hope that you understand my poor english!!
Kind greetings!
an exemple of really high contrast, according to the subject:
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Scott Staley
Member
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# Posted: 28 Jan 08 21:19
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Wow thats amazing what a coincidence today I tried my first B&W pi
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Rik Herrygers
Member
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# Posted: 28 Jan 08 21:51 - Edited by: Rik Herrygers
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Hi there. I like yours pics too. Although I prefer colours I do have a few B&W.
  
Okay, they are not bad but still. If I have to choose between B&W and colour ... right I take the colour one. For instance those two :
 & 
Which one do you find most beautiful? Or do have any suggestions?
Let me know. Grtz, Rik
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pica leo
Member
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# Posted: 28 Jan 08 22:05
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The best way to show this dog is in B/W
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pica leo
Member
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# Posted: 28 Jan 08 22:06
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TBM
Member
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# Posted: 28 Jan 08 22:10
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So much to say about b&w!
This is going to be a long message, I beg you pardon...
In the old times of analogue photo, if you had not got a second camera body, you had to choose in advance if you were going to make colour or b/w. And the choice was even more difficult because choosing colour meant that you knew you were not going to edit your pic in the darkroom as you could do with b/w.
This is one of the most important new things with digital. You take the picture, then you decide if it's going to be a colour or a b/w, and that does not change the amount of your editing possibilities.
And sometimes I do not know which version is better. IMO the rule is: turn your colourful jpeg into a grayscale, and then ask yourself: Have I lost anything very important with this process? If the answer is "Yes, certainly", that means that you have to leave the colours in your picture. If the answer is "No", or simply "I don't know", then you should leave the b/w version.
In these cases, for instance, the sky (left) or the sea (right) were of a deep blue that added nothing to the mood of the picture:
 
And then, I do not know exactly why, but b/w is always better when you take pictures of architecture:
@ Ruden: a very interesting question. According with my personal taste, b/w means "very high contrast". I have uploaded some old pictures of mine made with the old Kodak Tri-X film, a high-speed film I pushed to ASA 800. The prints were made on "hard" paper (Ilford n.4). What you see here is not far from the quality of the print.
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grumpyman
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# Posted: 28 Jan 08 23:02
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Thanks ruden ive found that contrast is nice to view but bad for developing on to paper .
think sometime i over kill on it as i just really love the darkness and the the light. so i try add little bit of colouration to the photos .
Pixum has been great for my photos though they develop them very well and to my liking ,have a lot in albums now.
Really love you photos.
And to everyone else thanks for viewing and leaving so many interesting and helpful comments.
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Ruden Fretsbo
Member
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# Posted: 28 Jan 08 23:10
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@TBM: Maybe I did'nt explain exactly what I wanted. I like a high contrast in B&W pictures, but it has nothing to do with the fact that sometimes we tend to force the histogram further than necessary. For example, in these pictures that you posted, only the second one has burnt highlights and black shadows (even if it's indeed very nice effect) but the rest have at the same time a high contrast and all the tonal range inside...
Anyway, probably it's just a question of taste... actually I like all the pictures posted up to now!
Hugs!
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lonesome runner
Member
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# Posted: 28 Jan 08 23:10
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I think B&W is great for landscapes, particularly this one. The old crumbled rocks and the monotony of the road looks much better in this soft gray tones then in the original colors.
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Ruden Fretsbo
Member
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# Posted: 28 Jan 08 23:16
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@grumpyman: you have really a very interesting portafolio... and, by the way, good to see you back again... forums where not the same without you :)))
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grumpyman
Member
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# Posted: 28 Jan 08 23:17
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thanks ruden means alot coming from a great woophian like yourself.
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grumpyman
Member
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# Posted: 28 Jan 08 23:23 - Edited by: grumpyman
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Here's one i wasn't too sure about, Had a really good feed back on another photo site felt that needed something to boost interest in the picture so i included 3 or 4 different tones in layers . i really like this one but also really critical of it , makes me very thoughtful.
Same with this one
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sawsengee
Member
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# Posted: 29 Jan 08 07:25
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Hello Grumpyman, excellent topic(b/w).....one of my favourite subjects.....here are some of mine:
Best regards........sawsengee
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Oscar_
Moderator
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# Posted: 29 Jan 08 07:41
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Oscar_
Moderator
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# Posted: 29 Jan 08 07:43
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TBM
Member
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# Posted: 29 Jan 08 08:01
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@ Rik: In your case the colour version is better than the b/w, because the main subject is the fountain in the foreground, full of colours. But the shape of the square arch is much better in b/w, and if that architecture, and that beautiful cloudy sky, were the only subjects, I would surely go for b/w!
@ Ruden: I agree with you, I only meant that also with analog photo there was the tendency (the risk?) to go to an extreme contrast. And you're right, what you see in the monitor is never the same thing you get in the print..
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Dieuwertje
Member
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# Posted: 29 Jan 08 17:06 - Edited by: Dieuwertje
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Hi Grumpyman, It's absolutly right that some pict. are better in B/W, here are some out my collection........
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