Combining photographic technique testing and exercise. Working on the black and whites. AKA: Monochrome.

 

I spent some time yesterday morning walking along some old, familiar trails through downtown Austin. I had one of my favorite "walk" cameras with me; a Leica Q2. I'm not one of those classic, old school photographers who love to overthink shots and I don't believe very many people who make a big deal about pre-visualizing a photograph and then endlessly tweaking before the actual taking of the photograph are really taking better photographs. Reminds me too much of amateurs standing at the scenic overlook of the Grand Canyon in front of a group of ten or fifteen bored family or tour members waiting, waiting and waiting for the photographer to get the focus.....just right. Mind numbing. Temporal wasteland. Overthinking things that should be easy or automatic. 

Want to get everything exactly just right before clicking the shutter? Then build a set and hire some models.

With all this in mind, if I am multi-tasking at photography and walking, and walking is the "primary" activity, then the photographic part should be mostly auto-pilot. So I set the camera to raw (bigger mishap buffer), set it to Auto-ISO, dial in a minus one stop exposure compensation (easier to recover shadows than non-existent highlights) and then shoot everything using aperture priority with an f-stop that matches my usual vision for a particular focal length. For the 28mm lens on a full frame camera I find that either f8 or f5.6 handles most outdoor scenes well. With the camera set this way it's so easy to respond quickly and without a bunch of ineffective fussiness. Less second guessing.

This is also the way I'm approaching black and white casual photography with handheld cameras now. I've given up even having to see the image in the EVF as a black and white. I just try to capture the best image I can in a color DNG file and then use the ever-improving Lightroom presets and controls to make what I consider to be good black and white conversions. With this new (to me) approach I thought I should include some "before and after" samples. Along with an image of the current (non-Tilley) hat of the month. Is there a "hat of the month" club? Should there be? 

So, each set of images started out life as a quick shot on a handheld Q2. No fussing, no recomposing and no second guessing as to whether the scene would be better or worse if I waited. It's a process that honors the belief in the power of first impressions. See the scene in a flash of recognition, bring the camera to your eye, quickly compose (and by that I mean to figure out where the edges of the fixed frame should be positioned) and then click the shutter. And, the shutter having been clicked is my cue to move on.

Most of these images I actually prefer in color. But I wanted to work on my conversion technique to black and white. Especially after having been challenged by adherents of the Monochrome Camera Cults. I have a Leica M10 monochrom coming on loan shortly so I can really, really see how much of the difference is apparent and how much is placebo. Placebo still being a very powerful thing...

Anyway. It's a peek at how I think. Move fast, shoot stuff, go home and work on it.

No B&W on this one. just a palette cleanser.