Exercise: Colour into Tones 1

Aim: The aim of this exercise is to better understand the characteristics of modern digital black and white. That is the impact of adjusting 'colours' to emphasise part of the monochrome image.

Process: By raising or lowering the colour level in the black and white mixer panel, it is possible to emphasise and de-emphasise parts of the monochrome image. This is akin to putting a coloured filter on the front of the lens of a film camera loaded with monochrome film. Of course, having the full colour spectrum means that we can be much more subtle than just putting one filter on the front of the lens, so this is a powerful method of processing the monochrome image.

In this exercise we are instructed to be quite dramatic in our work, this is to show the power of adjusting the various channels, but in reality I imagine this would be used with more subtlety and perhaps even discreetly over parts of the image (perhaps using layers and masks in Photoshop) to selectively emphasise parts of the image.

Two images were chosen, one with contrasting red and green, and one with yellow and blue. I have chosen a couple of images taken on my regular walks around the local area. I have used Lightroom for this exercise, and simply used the button and dragged on the image to raise or lower certain colours. I find this to be a very intuitive and easy way of seeing exactly what is happening and let the software determine which colours need to be adjusted.

Image 1: Colour

Image 1: 'default' Monochrome

Image 1: Raising the red channel makes the flowers appear almost white, and the car very pale

Image 1: Raising the vegetation (mostly in the yellow channel for this image) and lowering the red channel makes the flowers appear dramatically dark and the vegetation quite pale

Image 2: Colour

Image 2: 'default' Monochrome

Image 2: Raising the yellow channel and lowering the blue channel makes the digger quite dark and the sky washed out and pale

Image 2: Lowering the yellow channel and raising the blue channel makes the digger bright and pale and the sky dramatically dark, with the few clouds in the sky standing out.

Conclusion: This fairly simple exercise demonstrates the powerful use of adjusting the colour levels for a black and white image. The possibilities seem endless for tweaking each image! I have chosen images that are very bold in their colouring, so the results are very dramatic (which I think was the point of this exercise). However I can imaging that in more subtly coloured images the results can be quite powerful also. This is an essential step in creating a 'good' black and white image, and one that will be added to my monochrome workflow.

Moriyama and Klein

I have just got around to reading the October BJP which features the work of William Klein and Daido Moriyama who are currently being exhibited at the Tate Modern in London. Sadly I cannot attend, though of course I would love to! These images force me to reconsider black and white! They are extreme images...gritty, grainy, extremely contrasty, black blacks against white whites, and in the case of Moriyama, little in between. This is quite dramatic, intense photography, and I can see why it was considered very controversial when it was first presented in the 60s and 70s.

It's interesting to think about the political climate (Japan) at this time... Post war tensions would have run high and it seems like the images reflect this. Jack Keroac is once again cited as an influence, and I have also recently started reading 'on the road' as it appears to be quite a seminal book for many photographers and I'm interested to understand the culture a bit better.

I might also try to take my camera out in the dark some time to try for the gritty grainy contrasty look in my own work, just as an experiment.

References:

British Journal of Photography (2012), October 2012

Exercise: Strength of Interpretation

Aim: The aim of this exercise is to experience how 'far' black and white can be 'pushed' in processing compared with colour.

Procedure: Take two photos that can be processed with 1. high or low key treatment and 2. a strong increase in contrast (and possible clipping in the shadow areas). In addition I added in a Low key image.

Workflow: I have been shooting with black and white in mind recently, and have chosen two photos for this exercise. The first was taken at my 'selection of infinite views' location, and is a wide angle view looking up at a lamppost. It needed severe correction of vertical in Photoshop which I did after I had done the treatment for high key black and white and high key colour. The colour version is quite washed out, which could be appealing in the right situation.

Image 1: Black and White High key treatment

Image 1: Colour High key treatment

My second image was taken at a favourite location, near the Museum in the city of Brisbane. I have chosen a very wide angle of view and captured some shadows in the foreground which lead the eye towards the 'louvre-esqe' pyramid and the dramatic sky beyond. I have dramatised the colours through selective processing of the colours (darkening the blue sky for example). I have pushed this image quite a bit. The colour image is very dramatic and colourful also, but does look a little surreal with the brightness and intensity of the colours.

Image 2: Black and White Contrasty treatment

Image 2: Colour Contrasty treatment

In addition I have considered an example Low Key treatment. This image is shot up looking through a tree towards the sun shaded by some dark clouds. I have pushed the S curve down to deepen some parts of the image towards black and this has given a very dark moody image. The matching Colour image is quite similar, and the colours are only very subtle, so in this case it is quite convincing also.

Image 3: Black and White Low Key treatment

Image 3: Colour Low Key treatment

Conclusions: I am getting used to the idea of treating colours as tools in the conversion of black and white. Being able to selectively darken the sky in the second image without creating complex masks of the sky and not clouds is very powerful. It lends a very dramatic feel to the image.

Exercise: Black and White

Exercise: Black and White

Aim: To produce an image in black and white, from conception to final processing.

Procedure: I chose a situation with late afternoon low angle lighting a short walk from our house, a possible project site for my (possible) project entitled ‘a selection of infinite views’. I like this location because there is so much variety in it. I tried to frame images with lots of lines and patterns and shadows. I used the bracket function on my camera so that I could concentrate on getting the scene right, and then used the ‘expose to the right’ procedure to choose the best image.

The colour version is displayed below, with some ‘optimization’:

Chosen image, displayed here in colour

I then processed the image in Lightroom to create quite a high contrast dramatic image with the full range of the histogram covered.

Black and White version

Conclusion: This was quite a simple exercise. I have been ‘thinking’ in black and white more recently and this project was good for going through the steps from planning, through image taking and to the final product which I think is a strong image.

Black and White

In preparation for this set of exercises focussing on Black and White photography, I have done some preliminary reading, specifically Michael Freeman’s ‘Complete Guide to Black and White Digital Photography’ (Freeman 2009) which provides a good history of the monochrome tradition (from both traditional art and photographic perspectives), discusses some of the contribution of photographic images to art (for example flare and perspective), and discusses the various ‘attributes’ of monochrome images and some possible avenues for development to the area (partially coloured images, split tone).

The second section looks at digital monochrome, and covers some specific issues relating to capturing a digital black and white image – that is that we have all the colour information present (in a RAW file), and then we have a multitude of ways of using this information to create a monochrome image (or variant of). There seem to be so many complexities to converting to black and white and I suspect the only way to come to grasp it is to actually perform the exercises on various images – for example the discussion around handling green vegetation seems to be very complex and can be addressed in a number of ways with a number of outcomes! It seems the capturing of the image in the first place is very much only the first step with black and white (this can probably be extended validly to  colour images too – there is just so much to learn in this field!). 

Section three discusses creative choices and mentions ‘thinking in monochrome’. To this end I have taken the advice of the book and set my camera to ‘monochrome’ so that I see that on my camera screen instead of colour. I hope this will assist me in starting to think about form, shape and texture a bit more. I have limited successful experience with creating black and white images, so I do need some help in this area.

The final section discusses an area that I really have no experience at all in: printing and display. I rarely print my images, and if I do I use a printing company, and because I have moved around so much in the last few years (UK, then Brisbane and who knows what next), I don’t have a regular place of printing, and thus they are a bit varied. I don’t own a printer at all (we did discuss getting one but decided to put it off until after our next move) and I’ve never done much printing at all. I also have no experience making photobooks, a medium I am quite interested in pursuing (if I ever have a project good enough!) and I only printed onto canvas (a gift for mum) for the first time a few weeks ago (and was very pleased with the results). As for printing, framing and hanging, I have no experience at all in this area. I feel that if I am to continue to Level 2 and beyond (that is my plan at this stage), then this is an area where I really need to develop. I think I will have to commit to purchasing a printer by the end of next year when we are hopefully all settled again) and start learning about printing, paper profiles, different papers etc etc. For this next assignment I note that I need to send prints to my tutor. I’m not sure when I’ll be getting around to that assignment but I’ll need to do some test prints through the best printing company around, which is fortunately located just a short drive away.

There were some artists mentioned in the book that I have done a little research on, though need to do some more:

Paul Strand: Strongly geometric (light and shadow for example this early abstract work), use of whole range of greyscale, soft, advocate of social and political causes, street photography (covert!)

Paul Strand, taken from http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pstd/hd_pstd.htm for personal study purposes

Eikoh Hosoe: evocative portraits of body parts, light/dark strong use of contrast, using both ends of the spectrum, high key, contrast between male (black) and female (white), dramatic!

Eikoh Hosoe, taken from http://www.designboom.com/portrait/hosoe.html for personal study purposes

Ansel Adams: powerful use of images for changing peoples mindsets (setting up of national parks in United States of America), but I've always thought a bit conventional. Perhaps I should revisit. I did see an exhibition when I was in Edinburgh and the prints were pretty impressive hanging on the wall. Dramatic use of the mid tones, similar to Paul Strand, though with very different style (landscape). He was a master printer (I have read some of his books about printing/exposing b&w film)

Ansel Adams, taken from http://www.anseladams.com/ for personal study purposes

Harry Callahan: striking portrait of his wife with arms above head - almost bleeds into the surrounding, high key

Harry Callahan, taken from http://archive.mocp.org/collections/permanent/callahan_harry.php for personal study purposes

References:

401 Projects. (2012), Eikoh Hosoe [online], Available from: http://www.401projects.com/index.php?mode=gallery&section_id=153 [Accessed 24/11/12]

Adams, A. (2012), Ansel Adams Gallery [online], Available from: http://www.anseladams.com/  [Accessed 24/11/12]

Designboom. (2003), Eikoh Hosoe [online], Available from: http://www.designboom.com/portrait/hosoe.html [Accessed 24/11/12]

Freeman, M. (2009), The complete guide to black and white digital photography. East Sussex: Ilex

Metropolitan Museum of Art. (2012), Paul Strand (1890 - 1976) [online], Available from: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pstd/hd_pstd.htm [Accessed 24/11/12]

Museum of Contemporary Photography. (2012), Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999) [online], Available from: http://archive.mocp.org/collections/permanent/callahan_harry.php [Accessed 24/11/12]

Wikipedia. (2012), Ansel Adams [online], Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansel_Adams [Accessed 24/11/12]

Wikipedia. (2012), Eikoh Hosoe [online], Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eikoh_Hosoe [Accessed 24/11/12]

Wikipedia. (2012),  Harry Callahan  [online], Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Callahan_%28photographer%29 [Accessed 24/11/12]

Wikipedia. (2012), Paul Strand [online], Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Strand [Accessed 24/11/12]