Spare the Air C&C

Natalie · Dec 20, 2011

Here in the Bay Area, we have Spare the Air days, during which the air quality is unusually poor and we're supposed to drive less and not light fires. When it comes to photography, however, it can provide an interesting "Great Smoky Mountains" effect in the local ranges, producing more depth between normally flat-looking hills. Here are a couple shots taken this afternoon from the top of a 1500-foot hill, but I can't decide if I like the color version or the B&W version better. The hills are blue in the color version, like the sky - that's the way the smog makes them appear, it's not from post-processing. Which one do you prefer?

OregonT3i · Dec 20, 2011

To be honest, I like the color version way more. The B&W isn't really doing it for me on this shot. I love the blue coloring of the hills.

Dillard · Dec 20, 2011

I really like the first one! love it

Natalie · Dec 20, 2011

Thanks! The more I look at them side by side, the more I think I like the color version as well.

naptime · Dec 20, 2011

i really like the blue as well. especially since it's natural not processed.

we have the same thing here, but only on particularly hot summer days.

we are not supposed to mow lawns. we are encouraged to car pool or use the public bus system.

they call it "ozone action days"

we don't have beautiful blue mountains though!!!

ChefCanon · Dec 21, 2011

Def the color one. The B&W is just so bland. Nothing to be drawn into. Nice shot

Frequency · Dec 21, 2011

I vote for the grey-blue version

Joel_W · Dec 21, 2011

I'll follow right along with the Blue version. The B&W version needs some pop that's just not there, while the Color version gives a sense of dramatic. Being from the East, Long Island to be exact. I've never experienced such poor air quality like that. Can you "taste it" when you breath?

Natalie · Dec 21, 2011

Thanks all! Joel, no, I don't notice anything different about the air other than the way it looks. If anything, the air smells cleaner on Spare the Air days since no one is allowed to burn fires, so you don't have that smoky smell in the air. I hiked up the 1500-foot hill yesterday with no problems too. It's not like in Los Angeles, where the air quality is very poor most of the time, bad enough that I get severe headaches every time I spend more than a few hours there (almost without exception). Though it's not just a west coast problem; almost any large metropolitan area in the US can have air quality issues, often times much worse than in the Bay Area. For example, here are some shots on New York City on bad days, which I believe you are quite close to:

http://nymag.com/images/2/daily/intel/08/05/01_dirtyair_lgl.jpg

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lflfqloIv11qg5mwho1_500.jpg

Joel_W · Dec 21, 2011

Natalie, I see those type of shots all the time during the dog days of summer on tv. I actually live more then 50 miles due east of Manhattan where those pictures were taken. And being out on an Island, we don't get smog, but we do get some nasty polluted air if the wind is coming out of the West. We much prefer the salt air coming off the ocean. but then again, we suffer from some real humid conditions during the summer months.

bazooka · Dec 21, 2011

I'm going to throw my vote in for the B&W version. I like that it is more about form and less about hills and trees. I noticed that it is quite noisy so I looked at the channels and noticed the red channel is absolutely dreadful, so I created an alternate conversion which contains 0 red, and about a 2:3 mix of Green and Blue. I also ran it through noise reduction. I hope you don't mind posting this. I can remove it if you wish...

Natalie · Dec 21, 2011

Thanks Bazooka! I thought the one I posted looked noisy as well. I think that's because I converted to black and white on Photoshop by just turning the saturation all the way down (it's true, I don't really know how to use Photoshop besides resizing and cropping). I tend to do most of my work in Lightroom, and convert it to black and white with that program instead. This one I did differently though.

bazooka · Dec 21, 2011

Try this quick exercise... load up your color version of the image in PS. Now go to the "Channels" tab. You'll see the RGB composite (the color version), and each of the R G and B channels. Look at each of them by clicking on each of them one at a time. Notice how bad the Red channel looks. That's what's causing the rough and splotchy texture in your trees. This is why it's important to use the "channel mixer" to convert to B&W, it gives you much more control over the image.