Forest After Fire

Gary Glass

Boy, I've been on a B&W kick lately. My wife contends these pix would work better as color, but I do like them B&W. I think she's right if the point is to show you what you'd see if you were there, but I'm not that is the point. To me these are pictures to be looked at as pictures, not reportage. What do you folks think?

Here's the gallery in question:

Forest After Fire

Here's a sample from it:

Maestro

Personally, I think that your wife is half right. I think the leaves would work better in color, but the charred tree trunks work well in B&W. Also, perhaps the last photo of the lighter from, I suppose, the arsonist may convey more of the emotion that you want if it were in B&W. Have you tried that one in B&W? Nice captures either way. Did the authorities ever find the arsonist?

Gary Glass

Maestro wrote:

Personally, I think that your wife is half right. I think the leaves would work better in color, but the charred tree trunks work well in B&W. Also, perhaps the last photo of the lighter from, I suppose, the arsonist may convey more of the emotion that you want if it were in B&W. Have you tried that one in B&W? Nice captures either way. Did the authorities ever find the arsonist?

Good points, Maestro. If I get inspired maybe I should post color versions to compare.

I tried the lighter shot in B&W but couldn't make it work as well. It works better in color because the lighter is such an out-of-context color. I doubt if that particular lighter belonged to the arsonist, and it's certainly not a technically excellent photo, but I like the irony of it too well not to use it.

I don't know if the arsonist was ever caught. I don't remember hearing anything more about it.

Gary Glass

Compare & Contrast
OK, I quickly refinished a four potential color versions. Personally, I think the B&Ws work better. Go ahead shoot me down if you like. Take the wife's part. Everyone else does!

Maestro

I like the color versions of all except the third set. I like the B&W treatment better. The color versions just seem to show the impact of the fire more. In the third set I like the presentation that the B&W gives not that it really shows the effects of the fire more. It's purely aesthetics.

Dick on Aruba

Very nice study Gary.

I go for color also.

Thanks for sharing,

Dick.

Gary Glass

Maestro wrote:

I like the color versions of all except the third set. I like the B&W treatment better. The color versions just seem to show the impact of the fire more. In the third set I like the presentation that the B&W gives not that it really shows the effects of the fire more. It's purely aesthetics.

Too funny! The 3rd set was the one I had the hardest time deciding to do in B&W! But your reasons pretty much follow what I was saying above: in terms of aesthetics, in my opinion, the B&Ws are superior; but in terms of documenting the effects of the fire, the colors are superior. Not that this gallery is my best technical work anyway. Lots of problems with exposures and sharpness throughout.

Maestro

Gary Glass wrote:

Too funny! The 3rd set was the one I had the hardest time deciding to do in B&W! But your reasons pretty much follow what I was saying above: in terms of aesthetics, in my opinion, the B&Ws are superior; but in terms of documenting the effects of the fire, the colors are superior. Not that this gallery is my best technical work anyway. Lots of problems with exposures and sharpness throughout.

Cool. We are on the same wavelength then.

Gary Glass

Gary Glass wrote:

Lots of problems with exposures and sharpness throughout.

I find black subject to be very tricky to expose and process. It's hard to make things look BLACK and still get a decent amount of detail into them. In converting this particular gallery from raw to B&W I sometimes found that reducing the dynamic range somehow made the shot feel blacker. On one pic I was even very tempted by a somewhat inverted curve!