No Loitering

TonyCooper · December 27, 2009

When I took this photo this morning I was thinking it I would process it in black and white. With sufficient contrast, though, the statue lost too much detail. So it stays in color.

Normally, I like to leave some room in front of a moving subject, but I had a big, ugly trash can in the scene so I cropped it portrait and a bit closer than I wanted.

For you northerners...temperature this morning was in the low 60s (F). Overcast and gray, but none of that white stuff y'all have.

Wil Davis · December 27, 2009

Nice "harmless" sculpture! …bwaaaaahhhhhhhaaaahaaaa!!!! (sorry!)

(Doesn't need the title though…

)

- Wil

(BTW: v. cool sculpture!

)

bdcolen · December 27, 2009

TonyCooper wrote:

When I took this photo this morning I was thinking it I would process it in black and white. With sufficient contrast, though, the statue lost too much detail. So it stays in color.

Excellent image, and I think your original instinct to go with black and white was the correct one. Rutt can probably suggest a way to keep the detail in the statue.

rutt · December 31, 2009

I don't know exactly what you are after, Tony. Here is a take. What do you think?

B&W conversions are very dependent on the artist's vision because they essentially require resolution of ambiguity. See this tutorial of mine.

I started with my own conversion technique as described in this thread. In this case, I kept the red darken layer because it picked up more contrast in the shadow. I masked out the blue sweater from the red layer at medium opacity to keep it from getting too dark. I probably could have stopped there.

But I wanted to see if I could pick up better details in the statue and the sign. See this post for a reference.

rutt · December 31, 2009

A slightly different take. I only kept the green channel and relied more on K channel stamping to get detail in the statue and sign. If you like the lighter sweater and lighter statue, perhaps you'll like this.

TonyCooper · December 31, 2009

rutt wrote:

I don't know exactly what you are after, Tony. Here is a take. What do you think?

B&W conversions are very dependent on the artist's vision because they essentially require resolution of ambiguity. See this tutorial of mine.

I started with my own conversion technique as described in this thread. In this case, I kept the red darken layer because it picked up more contrast in the shadow. I masked out the blue sweater from the red layer at medium opacity to keep it from getting too dark. I probably could have stopped there.

But I wanted to see if I could pick up better details in the statue and the sign. See this post for a reference.

Thank you for your effort and for sharing your technique.

I'm not convinced that the b&w version is better than the color version, or that the color version is better than the b&w. After all, this isn't "Photo of the Year" in either case.

I think the bigger question is "Do 'Street' photos have more impact in black and white?"

The answer, in my opinion, is "Depends". Some photos, whether "street" or not, come across stronger in black and white. Some don't.
Black and white doesn't automatically make a weak photo a contender.

One thing apparent to me is that the color version makes the runner the focus of attention. The black and white version makes the statue the center of attention. I dunno which is the better since it's the similarity that should be the center of attention.

I have saved your tutorial, though, since the technique is really good stuff.

rutt · December 31, 2009

I caught the B&W disease from B.D. when I took his class for three reasons:

It was easier to work in B&W than to argue with B.D. about it for each image.
I hadn't really worked in B&W for decades (except for helping people with conversions) and I thought it would be something different.
I found that working in B&W made me concentrate more on essential photo elements: composition and content. I didn't fuss as much to make good color. And images shot in very harsh or dark light can still be saved and made into very nice B&Ws.

Now I am trying to find a better balance and use more color images. It's a matter of integrating what I learned from B.D. with my own personal vision. I think this will take a while. And I expect that most people who set out to learn what B.D. has to teach will go through a similar process.

As to the issue of statue and runner, I don't think it's essential to B&W conversion that the statue grab more of our attention than the runner. You think that because I thought that was the assignment: convert to B&W and keep detail in the statue. So I didn't work on the runner too much. If I just take the green layer and focus the curve on the areas of interest in the runner and also HIRALOAM sharpen to make the runner look best, I get this:

Look, if the runner is wearing bright clothing and the statue is gray, then of course, the B&W conversion will lose that attention grabbing element. But in this particular case, it's kind of our choice.

No Loitering

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