I photographed a play on Saturday. The scenery and costumes were very colorful and the play itself was tremendous fun. Even for 63 year olds. I photographed it mostly with two cameras; one equipped with a prime, 56mm 1.2 lens and the other fitted with a 16-55mm f2.8 zoom lens. After I did my post production on the 1,000+ files and sent along a huge gallery of brilliant color images I waded back into the ocean of files and started pulling out some of my favorites with the intention of tweaking them a bit further and sending them over to the marketing team as "Kirk's selects."
I pulled the first image into SnapSeed and played around for a bit. I liked my color tweaks just fine but then I hit the black and white menu and I had too much fun. There's a film look in the program but it's way, way too contrasty for any imaginable human use. But it does have a brightness slider, a contrast slider (of which I made considerable and successful use) and a grain slider. Rendering your images into edgy black and whites is both edgy and filled with a nostalgic memory of how at least 90% of our jobs were done when I first started out.
Here's my very limited set of black and white variations from the play, JUNGALBOOK, at ZachTheatre.org. If you want to see the difference between the black and white versions and the original color ones I've set up a small gallery on Smugmug.com: https://kirktuck.smugmug.com/A-group-of-selects-and-variations-for-Jungal-Book-at/n-52n6ZL/
Cameras: Fujifilm X-H1.
8 comments:
I wonder if black and white is generational. Do you get any requests for black and white in your commercial work? I know there is a trend for available light black and white in some high end weddings. (I wonder if that is in addition to the video)
Your gallery seems locked with a password.
I typically don't like the BW version, but these look really good. Quite a few of them really pull me in.
I also was blocked by a password request.
At one time B&W was the default and was widely understood as an abstract of the actual (color) scene. Now color is the default, and I think B&W is seen as purely an aesthetic choice. But: as an aesthetic choice, it adds a somber note, a note of gravity. It works particularly well with portraits, photos of people in a pensive mood, and you've shown some of these in the past. As an aesthetic choice, it doesn't work particularly well with colorful, upbeat, funny stuff; it leans in the wrong direction. I was interested in your B&W conversions because they show what can be done with B&W and you did a fine job with these, and got me thinking about doing more of this myself. However, I personally wouldn't choose it for a children's play.
Victor and David: I think I got the issue fixed. The gallery should be publicly available now as long as you have the link above. Thanks for alerting me to this. Much appreciated. Kirk
JC, Just to be clear, I delivered the entire take in color. The B&W's are for my own curiosity/enjoyment.
I do show some B+W in client meetings and private galleries. Everybody universally loves them. Nobody ever hires me to shoot B+W, ever publishes any B+W or asks me for even a B+W conversion here or there.
I started as a B+W newspaper photographer way back before light was invented, and I personally like working in B+W. Especially now since software allows me to have a ton of creative control over the process.
They have more depth, more of a three dimensional look, than the original colour versions.
Why is that? Does it have anything to do with your learning lighting with B&W film?
How long did it take to convert an get the look you wanted from the color image? What software? I shoot my Sigma's in the B&W mode with excellent results, the best IQ from digital in my opinion, but I still feel B&W film is the best of the best. There for I'm in the process of building a darkroom. I'm retired and bored.
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