Beaujolais in Colour

[Donald]

As members of longer-standing know, I shoot for black and white and, very rarely, colour. The decision is made before the shot is taken. It's not a case a of 'take the shot and then decide later'.

That being said, I went for 4 colour images on my recent trip to France. One got dumped. These are the other three. Since colour is such a rarity for me, I thought I just put them together in one post.

Any comments you want to make would be welcomed.

Church Window, Oingt
This is a result of the much better examples and guidance given by Rob (Marshall) when he did a series of these. Thought I'd try.


40D, 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM @ 73mm. ISO100. 1/125@f5.6

Wall, Window, Doors ... and a Manhole Cover
Pretty self-explanatory, I think.


40D, 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM @ 20mm. ISO100. 1/45@f11

Sunrise on the Beaujolais Vineyard
I had got myself up nice and early (5am) to go to a location I had spotted a couple of days earlier. I'm working on that B & W, but I don't think it's going to come out as visualised! Not sure what I've done wrong. However, I was so engrossed in that work and studying the effect of the sunrise on the building I was photographing, that I almost missed what was happening immediately to my right. I took a pause from the viewfinder, looked up and POW, this was emerging. So I hurriedly re-organised and got 4 frames shot before the sun peeked out from above the trees.


40D, 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM @ 59mm. ISO100. 2s@f16. + lots of GND filter

[ilovelucydog]

They are all beautiful, Donald! You do color well. You should do it more often.

[MrB]

They are all beautiful, Donald! You do color well. You should do it more often.

As a relative newcomer to all aspects of photography and to this website, I realise my general ignorance compared with the majority here and particularly those with great and long experience. Hence, considering that we possess the awesome gift not only physically to detect millions of colours, but also to appreciate them in communication and emotion, it is hard for me to understand why anyone would choose to exclude them from (most of) their work.

With the stunning results that you have displayed here, Donald (3 shots out of 4 taken!!), I must agree 100% with Mary’s comments quoted above.

Philip

[Donald]

it is hard for me to understand why anyone would choose to exclude them from (most of) their work.

Philip

I think that's a really good point that you raise.

My best stab at an answer is ........

You are absolutely right in saying that we possess the gift to detect millions of colours. But we also posses the gift to detect line, shape, texture and tone.

I think a colour image should be about the colour that's in the image.

I am fascinated and enthralled by the other elements - line, shape, tone and texture. And I think these can be explored more fully and satisfactorily without the the distraction of colour. A good colour image is about colour, in my opinion. A good B & W is about the other elements.

And I seem to have a reasobale 'eye' for tones, as opposed to always being concerned that my red/green colour blindness is going to result in some horrendous colour images that look fine to me, but odd to others.

[MrB]

Apologies Donald - I had carelessly forgotten about colour blindness. You will have realised that I did not know it affected you, and it certainly doesn't show in these super colour photos. I have learnt so far, mainly thanks to CiC, that a good colour OR b&w image can involve all or some of those other features that you mention.

Philip

[Donald]

Apologies Donald - I had carelessly forgotten about colour blindness. You will have realised that I did not know it affected you, and it certainly doesn't show in these super colour photos. I have learnt so far, mainly thanks to CiC, that a good colour OR b&w image can involve all or some of those other features that you mention.

Philip

Np apology needed, Philip. This whole question of colour blindness has featured a few times on here in the past. There are many photographers who are affected by some degeree of colour blindness and it proves to be no barrier whatsoever to the production of spectacular images. If you get the white balance right ( I use a WhiBal card) and don't go too over-the-top with the sliders etc in post-processing, then you end up with something fairly close to what was there at the beginning. And, of course, if you get it horrendously wrong, then you can just claim that it was your artitistic interpretation!!