Tuesday

Ansel Adams Wannabe Series – B&W Photo No. 04

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A few years ago I created a Black and White subject category on this site and started converting some of my pictures into Black and White photos, however, I never gave the overall process the time and study it deserved. Still much interested in this subject, I decided this year to make shooting and converting more Black & White landscapes one of my new year's resolutions. You may ask why create Black & White (or monochrome as its also called) pictures in the first place? Simply put, I have always been impressed by Ansel Adams' majestic black and white landscapes - and reminded of the power that's possible when you leave color behind. I feel shooting a picture in B&W can bring out a subjects form and texture much more than the tint and hues of its original colors. In the end, it can make for a far more powerful expression of feeling and emotion, often making the final result seem more like art. Again, I started looking at some of the pictures taken over the past year or so and selecting those that I felt might be better served as a B&W image. The difference this year is that before making any conversions, I began to do some research on the subject to see what I could learn about the process that might improve my image conversions. This led to the creation of a whole page on the subject that I placed on my Photo Journal site titled, Creating Black & White Photographs. This post contains dozens of tips on both the taking B&W images and on post editing and conversion. Be sure to check it out.

E-P1030995-P1030997On the right is the original color image of the B&W above. Even though I love the natural color of this scene that is so reflective of the sandstone geology of this area and think it is quite beautiful, I also feel that the texture, contrast and depth provided by its conversion to B&W adds a whole new dimension to the scene. The post editing techniques that I used to create the B&W image can be found in the post noted above.