Rust

[Clactonian]

[Manfred M]

Mike - I'm afraid this image doesn't show any rust. Yes, there are textures, but as to what caused them, that is something unknown.

Mike Buckley recently commented on the fact that he has not been able to get rust to look right in a monochrome image. I suspect this is because we all know that rust has an orange - brown look to it. I think colour is the first thing that comes to mind when we think rust (after all there are so many manifestations of it) and texture is much more secondary, Dan Koertz also tried to head down the textured B&W direction in his recent work, but went back to colour.

Rusty pipes

Good luck in this, but I'm not sure if success is assured!

[Clactonian]

Thanks for your comments Manfred.
It did please somebody and topped a mono competition but then opinions are subjective.

[Mike Buckley]

This is a wonderful photograph because of the geometric lines and shapes and the interesting vignette. (I rarely like such strong vignettes but this one seems perfect to me, whether it occurred naturally in the scene or was imposed during post-processing.) So, it's no surprise to me that it won a mini-monochrome competition. It would be interesting to know whether the people who voted in that competition feel that the image adequately conveys the rusty characteristic of the metal, as it's very possible that it won the competition without conveying that to them.

Though the photo makes the rust look more like rust than any monochrome I have ever made, I still wouldn't know it is rust without being told so. Most important, I don't need to know the subject is rusty for it to be an enjoyable photograph.

[Manfred M]

Thanks for your comments Manfred.
It did please somebody and topped a mono competition but then opinions are subjective.

Mike - it's a very nice photograph, so that should be more than enough to win kudos and awards. I was merely suggesting, much as Mike Buckley has, I wouldn't have known it was rust by looking at the image.

[Shadowman]

Rust implies color as well as texture, it's a thing of beauty and destruction so to present rust you need to convey one or the other; beauty or destruction. That said it's a nice presentation of tones and patterns.

[Clactonian]

Looking back I see that the original image was entitled 'Just Rivets', which is probably more appropriate.

[xpatUSA]

Mike,

I like texture shots but am not terribly into monochrome.

Would liked to have seen quite a bit more micro-contrast and low-radius sharpening especially at the image size that was posted. That would have brought out the pitting in the upper half and thus given more sense of corrosion. Sometimes an image processed large and then simply downsized for the web and posted without final detail work can go soft on you. Just a general statement for the punters, not sayin' you actually did that . .

Then, perhaps a sepia image would have hinted at rust without actually "painting it reddish-brown"?

[Rebel]

Rust has such great colour and tones, why you would you want to convert it to monochrome?!

[Clactonian]

Rust has such great colour and tones, why you would you want to convert it to monochrome?!

'Cos I'm not so keen on colour, much preferring shape, contrast, and texture. Guess I'm just a boring grey person.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Mike, (and Mike and Manfred)

I was wondering what reaction a monochrome image would get if it were tinted - e.g. a sorta "super-sepia" toning - but use an orangey/brown we'd call rust colour? Would that keep people happy


The following isn't aimed at this image, but ...
If you (or anyone) really wants to pull off a monochrome of rust, I think it will need far more context, some ideas on that (not all need be applied);

a) be a recognisable subject that we can all identify by sight - and hence know is made of steel that rusts
b) be almost macro - really showing the texture up close
c) with strong (keyed) lighting - to emphasize texture
d) with obvious water - perhaps a drip
e) perhaps also with dry and wet areas
f) perhaps with corroded and smooth (non-corroded) areas of metal

However, I guess the moment you invoke a) above, it becomes a photo of that - and not of rust - hmmmm
Anyway, some of the above might be helpful.


Getting back to the image in this thread; I agree with Ted's suggestion about it needing more obvious texture - the lighting is a bit flat and the sharpening hasn't revealed much of (most) rust's 'grittiness'.

It works well as an image though because of the geometric patterns of rivets and seams, as an abstract, enhanced by the white border and choice of border edge.


This, plus the other recent examples are proving an interesting theme.

Thanks, Dave