Haying Time

[imported_peter_m]

This time of year,

I haven't done any B&W since I was a kid but I am getting inspired by all the great shots on here. Shot with LC1.
I am not all hat experienced in B&W so if you have any comments and suggestions it would be much appreciated.
Thank you.

Peter

[john_r_smith]

Peter

nice that you are having a go with B/W. Since you ask for comments, here are my thoughts -

The picture is nicely composed, but a little uneventful. Perhaps you could have made more of the rows of hay as a feature to draw the eye into the frame. The wheel on the left hand side is meant to add some foreground interest I suspect, but to me seems to be a distraction rather than an essential part of the whole. Having said all that, I've got loads of shots like this too, which are pleasant enough but not "quite", if you know what I mean (in fact most of my shots, now I come to think about it). I have only very recently attempted digital B/W (although I shot for years exclusively on B/W film), and I have to say it has been a very steep learning curve. One of the major shifts in thinking has been that of course the end product is not a negative, but a positive, so it is like shooting Dia-Direct or another B/W reversal film. In other words, you can't burn the highlights in, but you can save the shadows, the opposite to negative film - so overexposure is a no-no. There are other snags too. Colour gives you a lot of edge definition where colours change, so a colour shot will usually look sharp even when the resolution is actually quite low (this happens with film too). B/W film actually has more acutance than colour negative, so the difference is made up. But when you shoot digital B/W, suddenly you are struggling to get the quality back because the edge defintion disappears where two colours become the same shade of grey, but now at the same level of absolute lens and sensor resolution. Another issue is that producing an image for printing is very paper, ink, and printer dependent. More so than with colour, in my experience so far.

John

[jmr]

Peter,

I agree with John's wise comments on digital B&W. I'd just add that, to me, your technique already looks rather good.

Keep posting.

[john_r_smith]

Er, yes John -

Peter, I probably sounded a bit over-critical above and should at least have mentioned that your photo was actually a very nice shot from most points of view. I don't want to come across like the Leica Forum's version of Erwin Puts here By the by, exactly *how* you create a B/W digital image is very important to the end result - you can shoot colour jpeg and convert that in PS, shoot B/W jpeg and do no conversion, or shoot RAW and desaturate that either in the Raw converter or in PS. Other colour conversion options are to separate RGB channels in PS or Corel and just use one (red or green channel, usually), or play with mixing channels in different proportions (say 60% R, 30% G, 10% B) and then desaturate, or (deep breath) just convert RGB to greyscale and take what comes. There are also various PS plugins which emulate B/W film for you. I have tried all of these, and am still confused. HP5 was just much more straightforward . . .

John

[hm1912]

For what it's worth, your "first" attemp at black and white looks significantly better than my first attempts. I haven't done any digital black and white though...

[wda]

There are many ingredients in this scene to warrant many shots, varying angle and viewpoint. Did you take any others; if so, was this your favourite?

David

[stuny]

Peter -

Personally, I like it just how it is, and find the roundness of the wheels at the left edge to set off the linear remains of the composition -- and it works vell in B&W.

Stuart

[imported_peter_m]

Thank you John, JR, llan, David and Stuart.

John,
You didn't come across over- critical, I think constructive criticism is most helpful, for me anyways

I basically like the shot but as you said it dose lack something, the other version I shot standing up is worth, I should have done a few different angles and be a bit further away from the first wheel of the irrigation pipe. But I never thought about it when I was there.

Thank you David for your comment, I will have to remember to look at a potential shot from different angles and see what I can get.

Stuart, that was my thought when I took the image to have the wheels at the edge to keep the image from "flowing away".


I have done some B/W conversion before but it was just that a grayscale version with that image I wanted a B/W photograph, I took it specifically for that purpose. I thing you guys who have been shooting B/W in film have an advantage and you have a look in your mind how the converted image should look like. I am just flying by the seat of my pants and go by feel if the image looks pleasing to my eye I call it good. The "good" may change over time but I don't have any B/W film background to draw from.

I do think in many ways film may be a lot easier then digital..... you don't have to worry about software and a gazillion of options

Thank you for the comments

Peter