I picked the wrong month to this little lesson. Same trouble with black on black. Got to watch out for the mud (too much gray). The whites are not as brilliant as I'd like. It's a short week! Two more to go and this little theme will be done for a while - until next time.
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!
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.
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 - done
4th week - white on black in natural light - done
5th week - white on white in natural light
@wag864 Thank you very much, Kas! Decades ago, I had a really good professor and this theme was a lesson for his class. Some students seemed to master it right away. Others like me, we struggled with it. I just felt my late professor's spirit urging me to do it again since I do so love black and white.
@phil_howcroft Thank you, Phil!
@mittens Thank you, Marilyn!
@ryan161 Thank you, Ryan!
@milaniet You are so sweet, Milanie! Thank you. I think at least half of them - he'd make me do again. =)
@ludwigsdiana Thank you, Diana!