Gritty

Aah, those evenings in the darkroom with the enlarger. What strange alchemy was worked with Ilford RC multigrade paper and those strange hued rectangles you dropped in the enlarger filter tray. Out of the other end of all this foolishness you were supposed to get a high contrast gritty black and white print to put on the wall.



Of course, hard black was quite difficult to achieve, and there were the ever present dust spots to contend with. On a good day something worthwhile could be created...


I suppose my question is this: Is it easier to make a black and white image these days. I guess you would take the picture as a raw (colour) image and then convert to monochrome in Photoshop. Even that first step has a myriad of choices, how much red, how much blue?


Should you use tone mapping to adjust the look of the image? An finally, how would you get it printed so the result were truly black and white with no tint at all. Deliberately tinting a monochrome image is a completely different idea...



Wouldn't it be easier to do it the old fashioned way, with film and chemicals after all?  Oh, and by the way, no I don't have a thing for old petrol pumps. Well I think I don't...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Casting a shadow

Image
Dismal dark depressing dull damp disappointing December. Hmm. Lets remind ourselves of summer when there were shadows in pictures. Lets concentrate on where the light isn't: Sometimes its the shadows that define a picture. Here are some of hard light examples from the Mediterranean, and each one will have needed some exposure compensation. The first images hints at a sunny day. This one gives you the evidence: A clear blue sky glimpsed between shadows. This third image, also from the much rebuilt and restored fort at Paphos , allows us to see more of the building. A pleasing succession of arches and the reward is the sunshine at the end And finally one last shadow picture: One for Arthur C Clark: The Monolith in Newbury Kennet Centre car park. Its been there for 4.2 Billion years. No one knows what it does.
Read more

The white stuff

Image
Here's a high key picture.  This splendid bloom is presented against a white background to captivate and impress.  This is not a studio picture, I found the subject in a garden we visited. In fact the method I used was to photograph the flower from below and I used the grey sky as a backdrop.  Suitable application of exposure compensation pushes the entire image towards white and gives it the high key look.
Read more