Tag Archives: CBWC

China

A tour of Chinese lines in black and white

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Longji terraced fields near Guilin
Lines of terracotta soldiers in Xian.
Line-up of roof guardians at the Forbidden City in Beijing
Lines of greenhouses in Shandong Province from a train window.
Lines on the sidewalk in Shouguang.
Beijing Capital Airport Terminal 3.
Curved roof lines of Beijing-Nan Train Station.

A gallery of photos taken in China over the years that I thought were dominated by lines.

For Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: Lines.

Black & White, Snapshots from a Happy Life

Early morning waves and rocks in black and white

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Early morning waves on Sandy Beach on Oahu
A big splash

Sandy Beach on Oahu really is sandy, but toward one end it has these interesting lava rocks. Watching the waves crash on the rocks is rather hypnotic. Even though the sunrise colors were very lovely I think black and white brings out the drama of the water.

For Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: Rocks, Boulders, Stones, Lens-Artists Challenge: Water, and Brashley Photography’s Mid-week Monochrome.

I used a combination of the black and white tools built into the GIMP and Nik Collections Silver Effects Pro to create the images above.

Hawaii

Waves and rocks in black and white

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I associate Hawaii with color. But I took several photos during the blue hour and they aren’t exceptionally colorful, so I tried a few of them out in black and white.

Waves crashing on the lava rocks at the edge of Sandy Beach on Oahu in Hawaii. Photo processed using Raw Therapee and the GIMP with Nik's Silver Effects plug-in.
Morning waves at Sandy Beach on Oahu
Waves crashing on the lava rocks at the edge of Sandy Beach on Oahu in Hawaii. Photo processed using Raw Therapee and the GIMP with Nik's Silver Effects plug-in.
Morning waves at Sandy Beach on Oahu.
Waves crashing on the lava rocks at the edge of Sandy Beach on Oahu in Hawaii. Photo processed using Raw Therapee and the GIMP with Nik's Silver Effects plug-in.
Morning waves at Sandy Beach on Oahu.

For Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: Matching Things (it’s a stretch, but they are waves hitting the same lava rocks with the same clouds in the sky.)

All photos were taken with my Sony RX10iv. I use Raw Therapee to do the basic adjustments then load the resulting .tif files into the GIMP. I used Nik Silver effects to convert to black and white, then did some touch up and added a vignette using the GIMP.

Black & White, photography techniques

Echos of light

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Mirrors

A fancy old mirror seems like it just needs a story to go with it.
Mirror, mirror on the wall…
A broken mirror found in the desert.
Self portrait in a broken mirror.
Sunset in the rear view mirror.

Reflections

Sometimes nature provides the mirror.

Clouds reflected in the Columbia River at Cascade Locks, Oregon.
Dramatic sky reflected in Puget Sound.
Trees at Fern Cove on Vashon Island, reflected in the tide flats.
Sky and trees in the wet tide flats at Fern Cove on Vashon Island.
Reflection lakes at Mount Rainier.
The mountain.

For Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: Reflections and Mirrors. To convert to black and white I used the GIMP for some and Nik Silver Effects Pro for others.

The originals:

Black & White

The other side of the mountain

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Naches River in Eastern Washington, Even though the river flows through the land is arid and there are few trees.
I always seem to pull over in this spot.
Scenery along the Naches is absolutely gorgeous, whether in color or black and white.
Naches River in Eastern Washington

We took the long way home from The Mountain last week, in order to get some apricots in Eastern Washington. The climate on the far side of the mountain is quite dry and the landscape is stark compared to the lush near rain forests on the western side, but it is beautiful none-the-less.

I think the landscapes have a classic, timeless look in black and white.

These were turned into black and white using the GIMP, open-source software. I used the same methods as I did for the post: Mountain landscapes in black and white.

For Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: Fields and landscapes.

The color images:

Flowers

June flowers

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  • binary comment
  • Made in GIMP.
Johnson’s Blue Cranesbill Geraniums
Yellow Bearded Iris
Red Lillies

Trying out black and white on some June flowers in primary colors. These were all processed in the GIMP. If you are interested in checking out black and white using the GIMP there is some information in this post: Black and white digital photo processing using the GIMP.

For Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: Flowers.

Black & White, Flowers, photo processing

Five petals

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A rock rose.
Columbine

The only fives that caught my eyes this week.

The rock rose was converted to black and white using RawTherapee, an open source program, and the Columbine was processed using the Nik Silver Effects Pro plug-in for the Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP). I added a vignette and a focus blur in the GIMP.

If you are interested in checking out Raw Therapee or the GIMP there are a few posts here: The photo processing tools on my belt.

For Cee’s Black and White Challenge: Five.

Snapshots from a Happy Life

Odd couples

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For Cee’s Black and White Challenge: pairs.

My pups: Asta and Ginger are almost inseparable.
Uncle and niece walking Asta make a pretty cute pair.
Dad with my half-sister: Max.
A pair of gulls on a rainy day.

These two were taken in black and white very long ago:

Scanned image from long ago: a boy and his dog.
Another scanned oldy: the same boy (his name was Watson) with his grandfather, also named Watson.

Watson was my grandfather’s oldest brother.