Tag Archives: Black & White

photo processing, Picture Galleries, Snapshots from a Happy Life

Late fall close-ups

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  • Oakleaf & raindrop with sunburst
  • Lichen on a cherry tree.
  • Tiny box leaves lit by the sun.
  • Maple samaras.
  • Camelia bud and the stamens from a spent bloom.
  • Rosebud and rosehip.
Close-up photos from the past few days-in black and white

All of these were converted to black and white using Nik Silver Effects Pro.

For Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: close-ups.

photo processing, photography

November nature in black and white

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  • Original
  • Simple desaturation.
  • Low key Nik filter
  • Black and white with increased contrast (using G’mic).
Barnacle rock.
  • Original
  • Simple desaturation
  • Grayscale
  • Nik B&W fine art low key filter
Wren in the grass.
  • Original
  • Nik fulll dynamic B&W filter.
  • Nik B&W fine art low key filter.
Beach, woods & sky.

I don’t shoot in black and white, but I took these photos on a walk yesterday planning to process them in Black and White for Hey Jude’s 2020 Photo Challenge #47: photograph nature in Black and White and experiment with high and low key effects.

photo processing, photography, Picture Galleries, Snapshots from a Happy Life

Light and dark

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Some photos from the past couple of weeks that have a strong contrast between light and dark.

  • A high contrast sunset.
    A high contrast sunset.
  • Seed head of Lily of the Nile (agapanthus)
    Seed head of Lily of the Nile (agapanthus)
  • November sky-high structure
    November sky-high structure
  • November sky-soft
    November sky-soft
  • Asters with raindrops.
    Asters with raindrops.
  • Close-up of aster with raindrops.
    Close-up of aster with raindrops.
  • The intimate tangle of branches really stand out when the color is removed.
    The intimate tangle of branches really stand out when the color is removed.
Black and white photos with high contrast.

While the contrast between light and dark is fundamental to black and white, I also find myself drawn to contrast in sharpness of detail and texture. You can see that in several of the photos above.

This week Hey Jude for Photo Challenge #46 asked for black and white focusing on contrast.

New Zealand

North island textures

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Sometimes it is the close ups that give you a real sense of place:

Lichens and mosses on the forest floor of a Kauri forest.
Water making designs in the sand at Te Paki stream.
Different kinds of clam shells in the sand.
Interesting textures created by water and the shadows of ripples over small pebbles on the seabed.

Shadows and textures really make the carving below. I think it looks more dramatic in black and white. The colors distract.

A Maori carving in a meeting house at the treaty grounds in Waitangi.

We spent a couple of weeks, amazing, delightful weeks, on the north island of New Zealand last January. It feels like more than 11 months ago. We were able to see our son over the Chinese New Year. He went back and while he was in the air going back the state department sent out its “do not travel to China” message. (I have some very pithy ideas about the US state department.)

Seeing him again is not in the cards in the foreseeable future, so I am sooo happy that we had that time right before everything closed down.

For Brashley Photography’s Mid-week Monochrome and HeyJude’s 2020 Photo Challenge #44.

Picture Galleries, Snapshots from a Happy Life

Natural textures-in black and white

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Every so often I take a picture because the pattern of the light catches my attention. While these are not exactly regular patterns they do have regularity to them.

  • Clouds
    Clouds
  • Grass
    Grass
  • Ripples and shadows
    Ripples and shadows
  • Clematis seedheads
    Clematis seedheads
  • Raindrops on a fallen leaf
    Raindrops on a fallen leaf
  • Bark
    Bark
Natural textures in black and white.

For Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: Patterns in nature.

and Heyjude’s 2020 Photo Challenge #44: Black and White with the instruction: Look for patterns.

Snapshots from a Happy Life

Coming from behind

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This is a really random assortment.

Japanese anemone.
Commuter or shopper in China
My husband on the city walls of York
We wound up behind this truck for quite a while. It seems like he was reading our minds.

Just for fun here is an antique-y sort of effect applied to a couple of them.

I kind of like this effect, like he is materializing from mist.
I couldn’t resist applying the old-time, romantic sort of look to the mighty johns…just for a giggle.

For Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: Back of things, and of course the back of things is also a Perspective, for Becky of Winchester’s July Squares.

China, photo processing, photography

Store signs in black and white

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As I mentioned in an earlier post I’ve been experimenting with black and white photo processing. I’ve also been trying to get my photos a bit better organized. These two have come together for Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge this week: some photos from trips I made to China, specifically Shandong Province, over the years, focusing on the signs on store front signs.

I used Nik Silver Efex Pro, an older version of it that I got some times ago, while it was a free plug-in for the GIMP. I think you have to pay for Nik now.

If you click on any of the pictures it will expand and you can scroll through them at a larger size. Some of them got quite small in the tiled gallery.

Flowers

Black and white

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I’ve been spending time this week reading about current events, and experimenting with black and white photo effects.

Yellow rose with raindrops.
This year June has been a month of roses and raindrops.

One trick I learned a few years ago was to look at a photo in black and white, it brings aspects of composition into focus that one misses in color. Sometimes something that seems almost incidental in a color photo will really jump out at you.

Rose and raindrops in black and white, using silver effects from the Nik collection.
Black and white of the yellow rose brings out the textures of the raindrops.

This is a time to listen, with our ears, and our hearts and minds. To put aside our opinions and really try to imagine walking in the shoes of others. It recurred to me that looking at things from a perspective of black and white may be a metaphor: it’s time to look at things in a totally new way.

A black and white of the rose with the colors inverted.
With black and white inverted the shape of the rose jumps out.

As a conventional sort of person, the current events of the corona virus and the brutality of police toward citizens are really challenging me. But reading and listening, and trying to do so from other points of view to understand seem to be a necessary first step…Definitely before espousing opinions.

For Cee’s Flower of the Day.