168. Monochrome - August 28 - September 3, 2016
Kevin-
Somehow I came up with this Monochrome theme without having any specific idea of what I wanted to do. But in my mind I started thinking specifically of an artistic, impressionistic black and white photographic effort. Somehow images that were out of focus or that contained motion blur came to mind. And I played around with that to some degree, but concluded that I don’t have that in me.
But one of the efforts I did make was trying to capture birds in flight. At slow shutter speed the movement and the flapping of wings could look very interesting, probably, but again bird tracking through a long telephoto lens is not a practiced skill for me. I also took some static shots of some largely monochrome creatures, as in Canada Geese. But the portraits of an individual Canada Goose or a group of Canada Geese swimming didn’t grab me either.
So I finally decided to drag some props to the studio one night, specifically a group of nice Sweet 100 Cherry Tomatoes, and played around with various lighting schemes, while dropping them into water so a splash resulted, or assembling groups of these little tomatoes, or creating portraits of a single cherry tomato. Nothing was really blowing me away, but then I brought out a sheet of clear plexiglass, and put it above a white background. I placed a snooted back light behind it at full power, and a very large softbox at -1 stop power to create the front light. Then I poured water on the Cherry Tomato and the sheet of plexiglass. I liked that result.
Nikon D4s, tripod mounted, 105mm f/2.8 Micro Nikkor lens. ISO 200, f/36 @ 1/250th of a second (flash sync).
Somehow I came up with this Monochrome theme without having any specific idea of what I wanted to do. But in my mind I started thinking specifically of an artistic, impressionistic black and white photographic effort. Somehow images that were out of focus or that contained motion blur came to mind. And I played around with that to some degree, but concluded that I don’t have that in me.
But one of the efforts I did make was trying to capture birds in flight. At slow shutter speed the movement and the flapping of wings could look very interesting, probably, but again bird tracking through a long telephoto lens is not a practiced skill for me. I also took some static shots of some largely monochrome creatures, as in Canada Geese. But the portraits of an individual Canada Goose or a group of Canada Geese swimming didn’t grab me either.
So I finally decided to drag some props to the studio one night, specifically a group of nice Sweet 100 Cherry Tomatoes, and played around with various lighting schemes, while dropping them into water so a splash resulted, or assembling groups of these little tomatoes, or creating portraits of a single cherry tomato. Nothing was really blowing me away, but then I brought out a sheet of clear plexiglass, and put it above a white background. I placed a snooted back light behind it at full power, and a very large softbox at -1 stop power to create the front light. Then I poured water on the Cherry Tomato and the sheet of plexiglass. I liked that result.
Nikon D4s, tripod mounted, 105mm f/2.8 Micro Nikkor lens. ISO 200, f/36 @ 1/250th of a second (flash sync).
Paul-
Yet another theme that lends itself well to a staggering number of creative interpretations. Neato!
I wanted to shoot a picture of a burning wooden match just at the point where the flame was nearly extinguished and the predictable column of smoke would begin to sinuously rise from it. It took me about thirty tries (and a lot of spent matches floating in a bowl full of water), before I got the shot I wanted.
Which is obviously not what you see here.
As I was reviewing the pictures, I saw one that I thought might be more fun to work with. And the final submission wasn’t supposed to look like this either!
This is what happened…
I had made some tweaks to cropping, luminance, shadow, detail, and sharpness in Lightroom. Then I exported the picture to PhotoScape where I decided to crop a little bit more as well as render the image in such a way as to suggest it had been taken with Fujifilm’s Provia. (Yeah, I think I did that last week, too. Some times when I use this option I see a better a nice gradation between the highlights and the shadows.) Finally, for kicks and grins and with no intention of submitting it this way, I used PhotoScape’s Reverse B&W option on the picture to see the result. I loved it. And I think there’s more than a hint of eroticism there (and just watch, I’ll be the only one who sees it) as well. That pretty much sealed the deal on which imagine to select.
Shifting into reverse: B&W shot in the camera. 18-55mm lens at 46mm; aperture priority; ISO 1600; 1/20 sec. at f/6.7. I set the camera to center weighted metering, and used its Active-D lighting option set to low. The background was a piece of foam core covered with black cloth and leaning up against my copy stand. Mounted on top of the stand was one down-facing light with a piece of heavily clouded plastic (of some kind) directly under it. And even that needed a cloth over the top to help diffuse the light. The camera was tripod-mounted.
Yet another theme that lends itself well to a staggering number of creative interpretations. Neato!
I wanted to shoot a picture of a burning wooden match just at the point where the flame was nearly extinguished and the predictable column of smoke would begin to sinuously rise from it. It took me about thirty tries (and a lot of spent matches floating in a bowl full of water), before I got the shot I wanted.
Which is obviously not what you see here.
As I was reviewing the pictures, I saw one that I thought might be more fun to work with. And the final submission wasn’t supposed to look like this either!
This is what happened…
I had made some tweaks to cropping, luminance, shadow, detail, and sharpness in Lightroom. Then I exported the picture to PhotoScape where I decided to crop a little bit more as well as render the image in such a way as to suggest it had been taken with Fujifilm’s Provia. (Yeah, I think I did that last week, too. Some times when I use this option I see a better a nice gradation between the highlights and the shadows.) Finally, for kicks and grins and with no intention of submitting it this way, I used PhotoScape’s Reverse B&W option on the picture to see the result. I loved it. And I think there’s more than a hint of eroticism there (and just watch, I’ll be the only one who sees it) as well. That pretty much sealed the deal on which imagine to select.
Shifting into reverse: B&W shot in the camera. 18-55mm lens at 46mm; aperture priority; ISO 1600; 1/20 sec. at f/6.7. I set the camera to center weighted metering, and used its Active-D lighting option set to low. The background was a piece of foam core covered with black cloth and leaning up against my copy stand. Mounted on top of the stand was one down-facing light with a piece of heavily clouded plastic (of some kind) directly under it. And even that needed a cloth over the top to help diffuse the light. The camera was tripod-mounted.
Jerry-
For a just a bit, I had this vision of a spark plug with a bit of spark. Maybe I could remove the plug from the snowblower, position it on its side, camera on the tripod, slow exposure, and gently pull the recoil starter to get that snap. But then I was too lazy and just posed two old spark plugs by the grinder with some light coming in through the open garage door. There was lots of crud by the grinder so I tried to spread some on the plugs in a believable way.
Sony A6300 with 55mm Micro Nikkor, F22 @ 6 seconds, ISO 400. Handheld. No. Tripodded!
For a just a bit, I had this vision of a spark plug with a bit of spark. Maybe I could remove the plug from the snowblower, position it on its side, camera on the tripod, slow exposure, and gently pull the recoil starter to get that snap. But then I was too lazy and just posed two old spark plugs by the grinder with some light coming in through the open garage door. There was lots of crud by the grinder so I tried to spread some on the plugs in a believable way.
Sony A6300 with 55mm Micro Nikkor, F22 @ 6 seconds, ISO 400. Handheld. No. Tripodded!
Don-
I shot this Friday morning from on top of a mesa on the
Navajo Nation. The mesa I was on is said to be the place
a gold smuggler flew in three trips with gold. He landed
on the mesa and buried the gold. It was from a time the
US government restricted the price and owning of gold.
This picture was shot in color and then converted to b&w
in camera raw. I used a 70-200mm 2.8 lens. The Focal
length set to 100mm. Exposure was 1/640 sec; f/9; ISO 400
and camera set on Aperture Priority.
I shot this Friday morning from on top of a mesa on the
Navajo Nation. The mesa I was on is said to be the place
a gold smuggler flew in three trips with gold. He landed
on the mesa and buried the gold. It was from a time the
US government restricted the price and owning of gold.
This picture was shot in color and then converted to b&w
in camera raw. I used a 70-200mm 2.8 lens. The Focal
length set to 100mm. Exposure was 1/640 sec; f/9; ISO 400
and camera set on Aperture Priority.
Byron-
I have a Grand Nephew named Josh "HIFI" Sorheim. He's a rockabilly musician, hotrod builder, has a steam engine engineer license and loves everything from the 30s and 40s. He almost always wears his hair in a pompadour. One day, in a second hand shop in California, I saw a poster of James Dean resting on a couch with a Leica rangefinder in his lap. The Leica has a wide angle viewfinder attached. Josh has a similar look as James Dean and I have a Leica range Finder with a wide angle viewfinder. Since then I wanted to take a photo of Josh in the spirit of that James Dean photo. He stopped by my house Thursday so it was the perfect opportunity to take the photo. It was also the perfect WPOTM to take a monochrome photo. Good timing all around. I tried to replicate the depth of field, angle and light. I shot at f 1.4, 1/2000 sec, converted to B&W in Photoshop and enhanced some shadows.
I have a Grand Nephew named Josh "HIFI" Sorheim. He's a rockabilly musician, hotrod builder, has a steam engine engineer license and loves everything from the 30s and 40s. He almost always wears his hair in a pompadour. One day, in a second hand shop in California, I saw a poster of James Dean resting on a couch with a Leica rangefinder in his lap. The Leica has a wide angle viewfinder attached. Josh has a similar look as James Dean and I have a Leica range Finder with a wide angle viewfinder. Since then I wanted to take a photo of Josh in the spirit of that James Dean photo. He stopped by my house Thursday so it was the perfect opportunity to take the photo. It was also the perfect WPOTM to take a monochrome photo. Good timing all around. I tried to replicate the depth of field, angle and light. I shot at f 1.4, 1/2000 sec, converted to B&W in Photoshop and enhanced some shadows.