Category: Uncategorized

This is a more thoroughly processed image. I started with a conversion in Capture NX, trying to capture the most information in the color image. Then in Photoshop I created the independent conversion layers that Vincent Versace describes in “Welcome to Oz”. My intent was mostly to create a well graded and fully toned black and white image. The rest of the PS work was to bring out the light that was in the scene, using some selective sharpening using Nik’s program.

All in all it’s a less casual, more controlled approach than shooting with the Leica and a C41 process BW film like Kodak CN400BW.

I’m back from my very extended travel. Berlin, Amsterdam, Milan. The D300 was a perfect companion and I returned with about 750 images captured.

In Amsterdam, I played a bit with capturing the Dutch on their bicycles by using a slow shutter speed, here about 1/20th second. While my intent going in was to keep the city travel portfolio as black and white, seeing images in color makes it a bit more difficult to stick to an arbitrary convention. I converted and processed this one quickly just to get an image up tonight. I’ll be working through the images over a few weeks, trying to get at least one per day online.

More extended business travel here. It’s overcast, intermittantly rainy and a bit raw here in Berlin. In a break from my ongoing business travel project with the Leica and BW film, I brought the D300 with me instead. Since I’ve been watching the PMA announcements with the thought of adding a compact camera for travel, I tried the iPhone camera for a quick capture this morning. It’s a view of the sunrise through a hotel window, 8th floor. No editing.

I hadn’t captured an image in about a week, so I was desperate to grab something today. Just captured 20 images, nothing really worked out. This was grabbed from the car window at the stoplight at 7 Mile Lane and Smith Avenue. It’s much too cluttered, but I did my best to pull down the tone on everything but the white house and tree shadows.

I’ve been working on the black and white conversions some more, trying to understand how to mix color channels to alter the tonal balance in an image. It’s complex and I don’t feel I have all of the tools, but I’ve made some headway.

Time and time again I get to a certain point in post processing an image and I stare at the screen, blank as to what to do next. I’ll give up and upload the image to Flickr. Once I see the thumbnail, it becomes clear to me what the image needs to get to the next level. In this image, the wall at the left and the sidewalk had the same value. It became clear that the wall needed to be brought down and the sidewalk up in value.

I also used John Paul Capinigro’s colorization method on this image, using hue and saturation in PS CS3. It’s easier than the duo or tritone methods I’ve tried before and I think is a bit richer.

I took a short trip to the Boston area on business this past week, dragged the Lecia along and took no images. I’ll start some more extensive travel soon. Should I try the D80 or D300, shoot for black and white and use conversion? Or bring the Leica as usual?

This is an interesting image for me as it ended up exactly 180 degrees from where it started. In the original image, the tree trunk in the front was the darkest, the trunk in the back was lighter and the background yet lighter.

I realized that for it to work, the front tree would have to be the most well lit, so I worked to push the light to the front and allow the rest of the scene to recede. I also for the first time used the Nik Pro Sharpener demo to bring out detail in the trunk on the front.

On Friday, I drove to Rockville, Maryland for a business meeting. While crawling in some early morning traffic, I pointed the D300 out the car window and grabbed this scene.

I’m now considering selling the D80 since I no longer notice the added weight of the D300 and I’m so enamored with the images that I hesitate to pick up the D80 at this point.

This image was small, generally unsuccessful experiment in manipulating light in a street photo as if I had used lights in the street on the subject. The original had very flat lighting. I’d like to rework this from scratch to get a more cinematic and dramatic quality.

I spent some time trying out the monochrome conversion method that VIncent Versace describes in “Welcome to Oz”. It’s complex and I don’t fully understand it. Some of the steps don’t result in the state he describes in the book. Some of this may be changes in Photoshop CS2 to CS3 however.

He describes a method in which rather than blending the RGB channels together, three separate layers are created- one for R, one for B and one for G. He then goes through the effects of changing the order of the three layers and then, of course, using masks to select how different areas of the image are converted.

For example, in this image I wanted the grate to be dark, which it isn’t in the color version. I wanted the sill to be close in value to the rest of the paint. This took a bit of painting back bright or dark layers in these areas.

Overall, it’s a destination that I couldn’t have gotten to without the methods. Using the transformation preset that engineered into a monochrome film is a much more constrained process.

Sometimes documenting the suburban landscape is like street photography in that one violates personal space. However, it’s not the bubble we cloak ourselves in when on a busy city street, but rather the privacy expected in the suburban neighborhood.

I am continually struck by the beauty that surrounds us wherever we are. There is a world there to enjoy.