Welcome to the fourth week of our Black and White Book Club study of Michael Freeman's The Complete Guide to Black and White Digital Photography (or the Black and White Photography Field Guide. Be sure to read the overview and week 1, week 2, and week 3 posts if you are just joining in. Everyone is welcome to participate, even without a copy of either book, but if you do have the book, you will have more to draw on during the month.
Week 4, Feb. 17-23, will focus on Creative Choices in Exposure – exploring over- and underexposure, high key, low key, high contrast, and low contrast. We will be covering pgs. 138-165/140-165 (optional processing pages: 104-/104-).
Creative Choices in Black and White Photography
This week we are jumping ahead to section three, Creative Choices (section two, you may remember, we are covering in optional chunks each week). Freeman starts the section by explaining that, "Possibly the greatest difference between photographing in color and photographing in black and white is in expression" (pg. 139/140). This week we will be exploring the limits of creative expression in black and white by looking at the two extremes of low key and high key images.
Freeman begins by comparing and contrasting several different photographers and their styles of black and white photography, from Ansel Adams and Edward Weston with their focus on the range of tones, to Paul Strand and his attention to the middle range of grays, to Bill Brandt and Don McCullin and their high contrast shots with extreme blacks and extreme whites. Each of these styles is a valid approach to black and white, and the chapters focus on ways to achieve these different looks and styles.
Think about picking a favorite photographer and style for the week and try to spend the week shooting and processing in this style. Or, take the opposite approach and try a different style each day and see which one better fits your needs for your given scene and subject. Consider sharing in your description the thought process behind your style and processing choice.
Freeman also provides a lot of varied examples of processing options for the same image, looking at the ideas of high contrast, low contrast, low key, and high key. Do you always agree with his choices about which image works 'best' for each scenario? If so or if not, why?
For those without the book, here is how Freeman describes each style:
* High Contrast: "increasing contrast is a particularly good way of emphasizing structure and form …" (pg. 150/150). A high contrast image tends to reach towards both ends of the histogram as well.
* Low Contrast: "some picture situations are obvious candidates [for low contrast]. Fog, mist, rain, indeed any softening effects to the atmosphere, has a certain evocative appeal … low-contrast images like this tend to sit well inside the scale, with no blacks and no whites" (pg. 154/154).
* Low Key: "the setting is a dark interior, with weak side-lighting that reveals enough of the subject to make it obvious, and a background that can easily go to black" (pg. 158/158).
* High Key: "For high key to work visually, it demands high contrast with a few remaining dark tones …" and "there usually needs to be some smaller, darker elements that are integral to the image" (pgs. 160-162/160-162).
Think about trying and exploring each of these different approaches to black and white photography this week, or choose one to really focus in on.
Delving in to "Digital Monochrome" chapters
This week's optional section on digital processing takes a look at the process of converting color images to black and white using colors and hues (pages 104-121/104-119).
Freeman explains how we intuitively 'see' colors as having certain values in black and white, and so there are conversions that make more 'sense' to our brains when we are trying to translate what we see in black and white. There is a brief discussion of the use of color filters in black and white photography, which fits in with what many of us have been discovering when exploring the differences between different color channels and how colors and hues are recorded.
Freeman then explores several different processing examples, looking at how differential treatment of the different hue sliders can have a dramatic impact on the final image. There are some suggestions specific to how to increase or reduce contrast in an image, which might be of interest to those exploring high contrast or low contrast images this week.
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Please consider tagging any photographs related to or inspired by the book club with the tag bw-bookclub and/or adding your photographs and thoughts about them to this post for discussion. Please also consider joining in the book club conversation with photographers outside of 365 by posting comments or images on the book club blog posts at http://www.boostyourphotography.com and/or by joining the Photography Book Club Group on Flickr.
If you are commenting on an individual's photograph, please consider clicking on it and then commenting on it directly. If you want to share a comment, thought, or picture with the whole group, then include it on the discussion thread itself.
Parting words for the week, "'Full' black-and-white photography means anticipating, selecting, and composing monochrome right from the start. And the only way to do this is to train oneself to think and see in black and white" (pg. 140/142).
Agree or disagree? Is the book club changing how you think in black and white?
I am learning to look for those lighter tones on the background that are distracting in a color photo and that look really bad in a BW photo. I am beginning to see tones in a scene better. I still struggle with BW, but I am feeling more confident with doing BW.
This book has got me looking a lot more closely at light and shadows when taking a photo. And in the processing I am learning a lot about how to change the look of the final image by using the hue sliders. Also doing a trial of Lightroom this month.
@archaeofrog Katie, thank you! I intend to participate this week completely. I love low-key and high-key images, so it'll be a good opportunity to learn how to do them properly.
It's hard to think in black and white. I wish my camera would allow me to display things on the screen in monochrome, yet still shoot in color. I am keeping an eye on the tones a lot more this month however.
I decided to play around with how to achieve low contrast and high contrast pictures in the camera today. And I have to say, I learned a lot. Please click on the pic for my notes.
Katie, unfortunately I don't have the book so I have been following along with your information. On this image I was trying to do it more as low contrast versus a high key shot, not sure if I got it right. I can upload the screen shot with histogram.
@archeofrog This has been such an interesting challenge for me. I think I have overdone one of my low key attempts, but I'm having fun trying! Thanks so much Katie.
@neatz Hi Anita, the tag is ' bw-bookclub ' and you can share a pic to this discussion by going to the 365 page for your photo, and copying and pasting the text in the box under 'share' on the right hand side.
@neatz Nope, sorry. If you want to paste a picture into the discussion, you need to copy and paste all the text in the little box under Share on the right hand side of your picture (it says 'copy and paste code') next to the box.
Adding bw-bookclub (all one word, no spaces) to your tags will make your image searchable by that tag.
@archaeofrog I tried to copy the URL from the top of the bw page in to share but does not work. What should go in box? Do I delete what is already in there? Sorry to be so dim.
I've found this week harder to deal with, concentrating on the high key, low key and mid grey tones to see what happened.
Mid tones
low key
High key is an interesting one, I've seen it described two ways, and took it both ways for this:
high key, high contrast - that was taken on +2 EV
high key, low contrast - again taken on +2 EV
Tweets ahoy!
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I decided to play around with how to achieve low contrast and high contrast pictures in the camera today. And I have to say, I learned a lot. Please click on the pic for my notes.
I'd like to be tagged on this as well. I've been doing the challenge since Feb 1st. =)
Thanks.
and a High key
Low contrast attempt.
pigtails...
Lone flower - high contrast
Low key snow.I really wanted to enhance the sparkle and shadow.
Adding bw-bookclub (all one word, no spaces) to your tags will make your image searchable by that tag.
Here is my shot
and another
Like how it looks like sun rays are emanating from the mailbox.
Mid tones
low key
High key is an interesting one, I've seen it described two ways, and took it both ways for this:
high key, high contrast - that was taken on +2 EV
high key, low contrast - again taken on +2 EV
High key, low contrast
Can you add me to tagged list please?