A Big Stick C&C

Riamfada

Hey guys,

Trying to get into B&W photography. Not really sure If Im happy with it. I was hoping I could get some C&C and a shot I took today. Im not sure if I prefer it in B&W or Colour or even at all. Id really appreciate some feedback.

My girlfriend likes my photography but she has to say that

edit: its not level on purpose !

Wabbit Ears

the on purpose not level is really distracting!!

That said the colour photo in infinitely better then the B&W IMHO.

zero19

I like it in B&W, but would rather it were level personally.

flyingsnail

I like them both but I think the colour is much better. I also don’t really like the not being level, I think not level shots can work but only when it is done to an extent that it was obviously taken like that and not a mistake, I think yours is off level enough to be distracting but not enough to show it was deliberate.

Riamfada

Thanks guys, unanimous on the levelling, I hear you. I supposed the colour is personal taste.

D.S.

Agree on the levelling also - doesn't work for me with this shot.

i think the tones in the colour version are interesting. I think there is a lot of good raw colour data that you can work further with here, and on balance, I think it's a more interesting version than the b&w.

That said, on the b&w, I do think that's a shot that could work really well if you adjusted your composition and your post processing (just my view). For my tastes and style, when i do b&w landscapes, I like to control and manage the tonal range of near white to near black by attempting (not always successfully, but attempting!) to manage where the viewers eye moves throughout the frame. It's an interesting challenge when you consider that your eye generally moves to the brightest spot first in the frame and then on from there. What's slightly distracting for me in the B&W is that my eye moves straight to the middle left of the frame where the river is, and then back to the sky and back to the stick (where for me the focal point of the image is the stick, and could pop more). while i also find the black in the top right hand corner a little distracting as it's not balanced elsewhere in the image (e.g. a vignette) or seems to be too deep to be a natural shadow. I do think if you post processed this differently and tried some different things with the tonal range, you might get a different result on the B&W. But that's just for my tastes maybe.

I have a view tutorials by joel tintjelaar (sp) which are really interesting on this B&W technique. Essentially, he creates high/med/low key b&w versions of the same image together and carefully blends until he has the near white to near black transition he wants that works for the composition - essentially it's another form of light mapping (which is another interesting technique). Cool stuff (though generally slow work!)