OK, B/W does make sense.... sometimes

[NorthernFocus]

This past weekend out on Prince William Sound I took a few random scenic photos. Nothing really well thought out. Just the typical, wow that looks cool, click. And of course the end results rarely represent my recollection of reality. So with a couple of them I toyed around with B/W conversions. I guess the following is an example of why bother.

To set the context of why I even took this shot, the things that caught my attention were:
1. My wife told me to take the picture of the rock with the tree growing on top of it.
2. The overall scene of the point with the errosion, downed tree, craggly standing trees, etc. are typical on the sound.
3. I think the yellow seaweed that shows at low tide is cool and contrasts against the other muted colors.
4. It was a typical overcast day in coastal Alaska with a snow covered peak in the distance.

So those are the things I was trying to capture.

I recommend clicking through the images in the lightbox to see comparison from one to next.

As shot SOOC, satisfies no.1.


Post LR editing, satisfies no.1, 2, and 3 sort of. Missed on no.4 as this image doesn't really give the feeling of the low, dense cloud cover and overall impression of grey.


B/W conversion in OnOne Photosuite, Ansel in the Valley preset tweaked a bit. Satisfies 1, 2(mobetta), and 4 much better. The yellow weed is lost but wasn't all that dynamic in this particular shot anyway.


So I'm grudgingly coming around to the realization that B/W is better in some situations. But I'm still in the place that for me it is a method of potentially saving a scene that just isn't working in color. I have no idea looking at a given scene in person if it has any B/W potential or not.

[Shadowman]

Definitely works. I can envision an image in b & w that includes architecture or a city scene with groups of people, rarely do I look at a landscape and say "this will look good in b & w".

[Mike Buckley]

We'll get you hooked eventually, Dan. You're better off giving up now and succumbing to the inevitable.

[NorthernFocus]

We'll get you hooked eventually, Dan. You're better off giving up now and succumbing to the inevitable.

So paraphrasing, you're saying "resistance is futile"?

I've heard that somewhere before...

[flashback]

Dan,
So what you're saying is B&W is a fall back for a crappy (color) scene?
Maybe what drew you to the scene was your subconscious recognized a rather suitable B&W scene, but the only way to communicate it to you was to use the terms and images you're most familiar with. Not to worry, eventually you'll be able to communicate directly with your brain, in the meantime, shoot the image you 'recognize' and then do the conversion in PP.
For someone who seems both reluctant and suspicious of B&W you captured one hell of a shot.
If you were to try and describe Prince William Sound, I would suggest just showing this image.

[Mike Buckley]

So paraphrasing, you're saying "resistance is futile"?

Nah. I assume by your comment that you're knowledgeable of the future and are aware that Jean Luc Piccard proves that resistance is not necessarily futile. That's unlike succumbing to the inevitable lure of B&W photography.

[DanK]

Nice example. I think it works because the image has interesting lines and textures, and the washed-out color adds nothing and distracts from those.

[NorthernFocus]

Dan,
So what you're saying is B&W is a fall back for a crappy (color) scene?...

In my case that is exactly what I'm saying

Nah. I assume by your comment that you're knowledgeable of the future and are aware that Jean Luc Piccard proves that resistance is not necessarily futile. That's unlike succumbing to the inevitable lure of B&W photography.

So, in essence, resisting the lure of B/W is TRULY futile

[Mike Buckley]

So, in essence, resisting the lure of B/W is TRULY futile

I knew you would eventually "get it."

[tbob]

Now you have experienced the power of the Dark Side. Give in to your feelings and your journey is complete.

As a rank novice at black and white conversion my only comment is that I am slowly realizing that monochrome works best if the subject is about tone and texture and not colour. As in this instance. To get the same emphasis and separation of tone in colour I suspect the image would be truly garish.

[Mike Buckley]

I am slowly realizing that monochrome works best if the subject is about tone and texture and not colour.

Shape, structure, tonal nuance, volume and form, texture. Interestingly, color photos can have all of those ingredients but removing the color can enhance the remaining ingredients. Those ingredients in the monochrome recipe come straight from The Complete Guide to Black & White Digital Photography by Michael Freeman that Donald is so fond of recommending. The more I reread the book (several times now), the more I understand Donald's enthusiasm for it.

[NorthernFocus]

All joking aside, B/W seems to be the ticket for shooting out on Prince William Sound on the typical grey, dreary day. For exactly those reasons. In flat light "tonal nuance" is all you have to work with. Without direct, angular lighting it is hard to capture texture in color, unlike B/W. And the environment is so dominated by the weather, and weather is best depicted by the sky. And B/W definately does some amazing things with clouds.

So where I've been frustrated with inadequate landscape shots of the sound for years, B/W may provide the necessary tools to adequately capture the moods that we experience out on the water.

I guess I talked myself into a mission for this summer

[Glenn NK]

Shape, structure, tonal nuance, volume and form, texture. Interestingly, color photos can have all of those ingredients but removing the color can enhance the remaining ingredients.

Yes, that's a good point - I agree. Admittedly I never thought about it that way, but it makes sense.

I think I'd better go back and take another look at some of my "failed" landscapes - our climate (hence skies) can be much like AK (they're just farther north than we are) and I've shot on days like that but never was happy with the results.

Glenn

[NorthernFocus]

Yes, Glenn, on Vancouver Island you've got about the same conditions as us in summer. But a bit less snow in winter

I had a graduated ND filter back on the boat. But nowadays PP software has made me so lazy it never even occurs to me to use it

[Manfred M]

Dan- As someone who started out in B&W many, many years ago, I'd suggest that many images work in both forms; B&W and colour. It is often just a matter of personal taste in which way to go. There are a couple of members (Mike and Donald) do a lot of work in B&W, while others dabble in it occasionally (me included).

In addition to Mike's list, I've found three other instances where I almost always look to monochrome (and not necessarily pure B&W) as a first choice.

1. "Period shots" - i.e. scences that we would have "excepected" to see in B&W. Old buildings, cars, costumes and settings (battle re-enactments, etc.;

2. Scenes where the colours overwhelm. Simplification is a pretty common compositional tool in photography, and removing colours can make a scene that appears to be "too busy" can work well when the confusion of colours is removed.; and

3. Landscapes with boring skies - If a sky is grey and does not work, making the rest of the image in grey scale will often work in turning an image that does not work into one that does. To boot, in the conversion process, it is possible to bring out sky detail that would look forces and fake in colour, to one that looks just great in B&W.

[Mike Buckley]

Manfred makes some really good points.

I have two additional thoughts about the period scenes that he explains we "expect" to see in monochrome: I've done so much study of the photographic period before color photography had become available that I expect to be able to see any genre of photography in monochrome. I like sepia toning for the warm richness it brings to a monochrome image, not just because it makes some scenes seem timeless; I have no hesitation in applying it to a scene that is far from timeless knowing that nothing including sepia toning could make it seem timeless.

[Loose Canon]

I think the yellow seaweed that shows at low tide is cool and contrasts against the other muted colors.

Then...

The yellow weed is lost but wasn't all that dynamic in this particular shot anyway.

Dan there is no reason you have to lose that yellow weed in your conversion. I'm not familiar with the software you used but just doing a simple B&W adjustment layer in PS (as just one example) gives a lot of control over that weed. You can go dark or go light with the tone depending on what you prefer. And there is a lot of other possibilities for potential toning control in this shot.

Which by the way is a nice shot of a nice spot.

[Mike Buckley]

Dan there is no reason you have to lose that yellow weed in your conversion...doing a simple B&W adjustment layer in PS (as just one example) gives a lot of control over that weed.

The two applications that I use, Nikon Capture NX2 and Silver Efex Pro 2, also provide lots of control of that weed. Moreover, they provide the same kind of control that can be exercised in at least two ways thinking about it just off the top of my head.

[NorthernFocus]

Manfred, up until recently the "period shots" were the only time I ever considered B/W conversions. And I totally agree there are some shots that simply don't look right in color.

Mike and Terry, I did play around with filters a bit and while I was able to dramatically change the tonality of the seaweed, the net result is still that it shows up more as texture and as such becomes indistinguishible from the gravel/rocks/barnacles that it shares space with.

Bottom line is that in this particular photo, the B/W version captures more of what was intended than the color version. Life is full of compromises and giving up the yellow was a good deal compared to gaining more detail in the cloudy sky, the textures of rock/gravel, and the weather beaten trees.

Matter of fact, here is yet another conversion of one that I nearly culled. Not a wall hanger but it now reasonably accomplishes the effect I had intended with I pressed the shutter button. It is amazing how much detail the B/W brings out on the hazy BG. In the color version I really struggled to bring out detail on the mountain. And on of my primary points was to depict the mountain towering in the BG with its peak disappearing into the clouds.



On the other hand, here is a tighter shot on the scene in the OP that looks pretty good in color. The sky could maybe use a bit more work.

[Mike Buckley]

Both of the last two images are keepers.

Keep in mind that your software might make it possible to convert part of the image using one color filter and to convert the rest using another color filter. I've done that only once but it was a great tool to have in my bag of tricks.

An alternative is to completely change the hue of part of the color image as the preparation for converting so everything converts as you intend.

Once you become more proficient with converting to monochrome (notice the assumption that it will happen per the above discussion ), you'll be able to make every part of the image distinguishable from the surrounding parts at your wish. I mention this only so you don't have the mistaken belief that converting to monochrome prevents you from having that flexibility.