First time at Black&White

photonewbie23 · Nov 13, 2012

Well these are some of the photos I captured today, let me know what you think. The last one is meant to look the way it does, I thought it was kinda cool but most will probably disagree.

photonewbie23 · Nov 20, 2012

Any input on your thought of the photos would be greatly appreciated, criticism is always welcomed!

thetrue · Nov 20, 2012

I actually rather enjoy the last one.

photonewbie23 · Nov 21, 2012

Thanks, glad to know im not the only one!

LazyFrog60 · Nov 21, 2012

Agree, the last one is the best. Kind of dramatic!

gsgary · Nov 21, 2012

Last one looks like a face with lots of hair

ronlane · Nov 21, 2012

I think that they are all nice. I like #2 better than #1 but my favorite of them is #4

carolthomasburns · Nov 21, 2012

Love them all - love B&W anyway but the detail in them is great. Love No. 4 the best - great lighting which shows the details in the rocks

The_Traveler · Nov 21, 2012

The first three are really cliches, wide angle view of something receding into the distance. THe first one is the best, I think. #2 & #3 suffer from severe OOF problem,s and no real center of itnerest.

#4 looks interesting but when it is seen at full size the composition is chaotic and there is no real center of interest. Beyond that the shot shows signs of severe overprocessing in the tree branches and the haloing of the rocks.

fjrabon · Nov 21, 2012

In some ways I like the last one, and I agree it's the most interesting of the 4. The leaves being lighter than the sky they're lit by is disconcerting though. I think our eyes understand the idea that an object can't be brighter than the light source that it is reflecting. These trees, especially around the edges, almost look like some sort of chemical process is going on inside them that make them glow in comparison to the drastically dark sky. As Lew pointed out, there is a lot of fringing in #4 as well. ie there are white lines that delineate where the processing on the sky stopped and started. It's a dead give away of heavy processing.

Heavy processing isn't bad in and of itself, but when the eye can clearly see the artifacts of it, it usually degrades the image.

I have no issue with the general look of the last image, but if you're going to process that much, it is a VERY painstaking process to get it to look just right. If you half way do it, the viewer quickly picks up on the 'tricks' and a good but heavily processed image has to be like a great magic trick, obvious in some sense that magic has gone on, but not obvious as to how it was actually done.

photonewbie23 · Nov 21, 2012

Well thanks for the input guys , yeah I know number four looks odd but that's kind of the look I was going for. Maybe next walk around the golf course I can capture some better photos .

fjrabon · Nov 21, 2012

photonewbie23 said:
Well thanks for the input guys , yeah I know number four looks odd but that's kind of the look I was going for. Maybe next walk around the golf course I can capture some better photos .

Well, I don't think the 'oddness' is what people have an issue with. It's the artifacts of what you used to create the oddness.