Sunday, September 30, 2007

Random Black & White

I'm not sure if I have any clue as to how to take a good black and white photo, but here are a few random attempts. Click to enlarge.

A small, old (now unused) church and its graveyard. This was taken just down the road from my mom's place.


A detail from the St. John's Anglican church in Truro (from a couple of posts ago). This picture reminds me of an old vampire movie...


The "roof" of a carousel at an indoor amusement park in Moncton, New Brunswick (Crystal Palace).


My mom's mailbox.


Some gnarled tree roots on a riverbank.

9 comments:

  1. Now these are good. You could make something out of them.

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  2. I love the roof of the carousel and the abandoned church best. B&W can be a challenging medium to work with - it's something I want to have a go at.

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  3. 2nd & 3rd are very nice. If you can pump up the contrast, they'll be full-on awesome.

    Admittedly, I'm kind of a contrast fanatic...

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  4. Glenn, AV, Eli,
    Thanks for the encouraging words!

    Eli,
    Yeah, I've only started using photoshop in the past few weeks. I haven't yet developed the instinct for "too much/too little" contrast, brightness, etc.

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  5. Kyklops, love the recent focus on the photography. Aboslutely love the black and white. I love the church too but really love the warmth, the sotness of the last two. Be care when uping the contrast that you don't lose the subtlies, the warmth of your shots.

    And oh how I agree with you on "When your wife and daughter want to get a puppy." We now have a cat.

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  6. The church looks really creepy! Great visual achievement, I'd say.

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  7. Nice pix.

    The thing that's great about black and white photography is that with everything in color these days, B&W always looks especially dramatic. Not to take anything away from you, of course. I really do like these, especially the church and the tree.

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  8. WAI,
    Yes, I've noticed that too much contrast gives them a hard edge that can seem a bit harsh. Depends on the subject matter, I guess.
    Regarding the puppy, I'm not really against the whole idea, it's just the idea of changing my daily routine that sticks in my mind...

    Usual Stuff,
    I wasn't really thinking "creepy" when I took the shot, but when I looked at it full size I immediately thought of Bela Lugosi!

    Brendan,
    Thanks for your comment. There's a debate raging in my mind about color vs. B&W. I'm not usually thinking about "art" with the pics I post--I want readers to "see what I saw" and to try to give them a sense of what it's like in Miyazaki or Halifax or wherever. In that sense I'm very big on "realism" (i.e. color). Black and white can look awfully cool sometimes, though...

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  9. These seem good to me, but then I'm no expert. Sometimes colour is great and other times stuff calls out for black and white. I don't know.

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