Shot in black and white in natural light. Doing my own black and white theme for the month of April. Going back to class so to speak... My goal for this month is NOT to do "product" photography - I do NOT want my subject to look like it's floating in air on a washed out background. My goal is to maintain some detail in the background and still keep a good focus on my subject. It's much harder to do than I remembered!
The human eye can see about 30 shades of gray between black and white - forget about the infamous book, and an average RGB computer screen can detect 256 shades of gray which we can't see anyway. How many shades are there really? Only God knows!
Same black leather bow as in the prior week, set on my Turkish black goat skin rug. This is not bad, but it doesn't have the darker/richer tones that the image with the eye-glass case has! Black and white has its challenges with these backgrounds and objects. What the eye perceives as black or white in a black and white image is a task - light, f-stop, ISO, focal length, etc. all play a role in the nearest to perfect image you can capture. Keeping detail in your subject and background along with the tones the eye perceives as black and/or white is NOT easy. Looking at this image, if I didn't tell you it was black on black - would you perceive it as such?
The biggest thing to watch out for when shooting black on black is "mud." John Frair said too much gray makes for a very muddy shot and thus - no good score. You still have to have pure black in your shadows and pure white in your highlights. I think it's a little easier than shooting black on white, but it has its own challenges with "mud."
This is turning out to be an interesting re-learning experience. It really was an assignment for John Frair's class so many decades ago. God bless him! I would love a do-over in his class if he was still around.
1st week - only shades of gray in natural light - done
2nd week - black on white in natural light - done
3rd week - black on black in natural light
4th week - white on black in natural light
5th week - white on white in natural light
I know it's black on black but the blacks are not as black as when they are on white. I think there is a lot more visible texture in these black on black shots though
@kjarn I think you're the only one to read my question, Kathy. Thank you! More texture - I agree. Getting the blacks right can be done - I saw it in class. I came closest with the eye-glass case - not so much with the rest. =)
While you do have some gorgeous dark tones and some lighter grays I’m not seeing a pure white or lighter tones since you’ve been going for the black on black shots this week... maybe you have too much middle gray? Not sure... but I love the bow.
@kvphoto You're right! Just couldn't get some of these right. I'll probably do it all over again in a couple of months. Hunching over these things for a shot kills my back, so maybe after the nerve block injections I can do a little better than this. Thanks, KV! Appreciate your honesty very much.
@wakelys LOL! Thank you, Susan! How about a long-haired goat with a bow? =)
@ljmanning Thank you, Laura!