Paul Simon can suck it! or, "Mama Don't Take My Monochrome Away"

Tim Kamppinen

Ok, sorry for the ridiculous title. I've been shooting some black and white stuff lately. One method that I hadn't done before was to shoot with B&W picture controls in camera even though I'm shooting RAW and have to convert it myself later anyway. I find that it helps me to get better results as I can "see what I'm doing" so to speak without having to simply imagine the image in black and white. These are some recent shots, also shot with available light only as I'm working on improving my skills in that department. Let me know what you think:

#1 (A brief foray into street photography... graffiti reads "Is this the life that you lead, or the life that's led for you?"... Rise Against lyrics)



#2 (The rest of these are of two friends of mine)



#3



#4



#5



#6



#7



#8



#9



#10



#11

Art Scott

actually...a very well done series........thumbbow

tortillatorture

yes agree...
instante choises are #6 and #10 i really like the light and how the
backround in both of these are divided into two halves of black and white.
pretty ladys are allways nice to look at.

but it is the nr #2 that really gets me, it makes me curious and i feel that i want to see what shes going to paint.
theres that small "branche" that comming in from the right by her head i would clone out,
but it doesnt really matter, its not that distracting,
this shot make my eyes go everywhere, not of confusion but of curousity.

BMW Kurt

Good series! I've always been a fan of B&W. As far as your thread title goes...Kodak has taken our Kodachrome away! :cry (Yes... I still shoot lots of film :rutt )

jethibod

I 'heart' #6 and #8 - the light and the model are beautiful! I like #2 as well, but was curious about what she was going to paint, too!

Nice job, Tim!

(...I've been humming that tune in my head since I saw your post on the board...driving myself crazy!)

Mitchell

#6 is excellent. I like the conversion. The lighting and pose are very nice.

bdcolen

A lovely series, and your conversions work very well. It can be helpful to shoot RAW and small jpg and set the jpg to bw so that you get to see in black and white.

My only real criticism is that I'd put a level on your camera to avoid having your subjects look as though they're tumbling over backwards.

zoomer

I like 7 and 9, not a fan of the tilts.
7 has a lot of potential, very nice light in that one. Very pretty lady.

Nikolai

Good series, Tim. A tad soft/noisy imho, but still good!

Tim Kamppinen

Thanks for the comments. As for what she's painting, it's an eagle. You can see the wing in #4. I would have got a shot of the finished product, but she didn't finish it while I was there, so...

bd: thanks, and on Nikon cameras anyway you don't even have to shoot RAW + jpeg because the LCD preview that the camera displays is a small embedded jpeg created with whatever picture control settings you have. So as long as you are content to do the conversion yourself later from the RAW file, there's no need to take up extra card space by shooting in both formats. I think Canon works the same way but I'm not positive.

Re: Tilted shots... I've been doing this a lot lately... I just noticed that when I went to great lengths to get level and squared up shots that they just looked bland and static, and I ended up cropping them in more dynamic ways in post, throwing away pixels. So I've been trying to do this in camera instead... to me it adds another level of visual interest and sense of motion. I dunno... I haven't got tired of it yet. Maybe I will...

Nikolai, these are noisy, as a lot of them are shot at high ISOs due to the low light levels. I don't mind it nearly as much as I would if they were in color though. As for the softness, most of them are tack sharp in the originals but they're linked from facebook which tends to just give me the finger and soften anything I upload to it by some degree. Oh well...

bdcolen

Tim Kamppinen wrote:

.

bd: thanks, and on Nikon cameras anyway you don't even have to shoot RAW + jpeg because the LCD preview that the camera displays is a small embedded jpeg created with whatever picture control settings you have. So as long as you are content to do the conversion yourself later from the RAW file, there's no need to take up extra card space by shooting in both formats. I think Canon works the same way but I'm not positive.

Re: Tilted shots... I've been doing this a lot lately... I just noticed that when I went to great lengths to get level and squared up shots that they just looked bland and static, and I ended up cropping them in more dynamic ways in post, throwing away pixels. So I've been trying to do this in camera instead... to me it adds another level of visual interest and sense of motion. I dunno... I haven't got tired of it yet. Maybe I will...

Nice to know about the Nikons - great feature.

As to the tilt. So...what you're saying is that you've been making dull images and you think that the problem lays in the fact that the horizontals and verticals have been straight?

With all do respect...you've just proven my point about the fad of tilting. If the images are dull, they're dull. Tilting doesn't make them special, or even interesting - it just makes them tilted, and says 'the photographer couldn't figure out what else to do.'

It seems to me there are two options is the images are dull. The first, and this is definitely the easiest option if you are shooting for yourself, rather than for a client, is to be more discriminating in what you shoot. The second, and it's necessary if you absolutely must get the image, is to go at it in more, different ways to find an interesting way to capture an inherently dull subject.

Tilt less, take chances more.

jeffreaux2

Tim Kamppinen wrote:

bd: thanks, and on Nikon cameras anyway you don't even have to shoot RAW + jpeg because the LCD preview that the camera displays is a small embedded jpeg created with whatever picture control settings you have. So as long as you are content to do the conversion yourself later from the RAW file, there's no need to take up extra card space by shooting in both formats. I think Canon works the same way but I'm not positive.

Canon does work this way.

I spent a year or so shooting RAW plus jpeg, but it really is a waste of card space. At the time I was using the jpegs in windows to pre-sort before I began editing. Now I shoot only RAW and do the sorting and editing (well most of it) in Lightroom.

Tim Kamppinen

bdcolen wrote:

As to the tilt. So...what you're saying is that you've been making dull images and you think that the problem lays in the fact that the horizontals and verticals have been straight?

Sorry, but that's not what I was saying. But thanks for putting words in my mouth. Perhaps I should have chosen my words more carefully, but what I was trying to convey is that the shots in question lacked something and looked too motionless for my taste, not that they were just totally dull to begin with. I found that tilting the composition, in many cases, could get rid of that static feeling and add the last bit of "something" that I felt was needed. I think it also moves the image from being strictly objective to more of a subjective feel, similar to hand held cinematography versus scenes that are shot on a tripod. To me it lends itself more to evoking emotion because of that.

It's just another tool in the box, not something that needs to be done on every shot. As I said before, I'm experimenting with it which is why I did it so much here... although I personally think it works and I like the results. By all means, feel free to put a level on your camera and make sure your horizon is level before you ever press the shutter, if that's what you're into.

RezaMorri

I am a sucker for B&W. Good work