Black and White Photographer of the Year 2011 Comp

Quite a few people who knew that I had 3 pictures that were shortlisted for "Black and White Photographer of the Year" have asked how I got on in the competition.

Well I didn't win,  you can see the winners here.  Congratulations to Binh Trinh and the other winners.

I was pleased however to get one shot recognized in the "Shots we liked but didn't quite make it" section featured in this months magazine and was chosen to go on the welcome page of the magazine.

I'm taking that as pretty much a second place in one of the categories - which is nice. I am also really proud that the shot in question is of my beloved Smudge,  a dog with more personality than a little dog should have, who unfortunately passed away exactly a year ago.

Below are the three shots that were shortlisted:

Gormley Towers

Smudge

Lunchtime

Black and White Photographer of the Year Competition 2011

I recently had 3 photos short-listed for the Black and White Photographer of the year competition 2011.  Unfortunately I didn't come anywhere in the final judging, but I am just happy enough to be short-listed.

For those that asked here are the three shots that were shortlisted.

Gormley Towers

Lunch Time

Smudge

The Magic of Steam

There is nothing more likely to bring out the small child from the grown man than a steam train.  I took am not immune from the romance of steam.  Here are some shots from The North Yorkshire Moors railway that I just couldn't resist.

Tea Time

of Gloucester

Freight Train

Driver takes a break

Old Friends

Motive Power

Black and White in lightroom

2011 so far has been a rubbish year for photography for me.  I was laid up with a really nasty bought of Pneumonia at the beginning of the year  and as soon as I was feeling well the sky became a thick featureless mass of cloud.  I managed to snap my LEE big stopper into 3 bits - even though it has hardly left my bag for months. After managing a decent weeks shooting in Derbyshire I am now suffering with eye problems which make photography difficult and driving anywhere to take shots impossible.

A new collection as virtual copies

In a desperate attempt to produce some pictures, I decided to take a look at last years photos and see if they looked any good in black and white:

In Lightroom I selected every shot I took last year, which is easy enough to do as I have my pictures automatically stored into folders for each year, so it is simply a question of navigating to the correct folder and using ctrl + A to select all the images.

I then decide to create a new collection of these images as virtual copies. Virtual copies are a duplication of your picture but they don’t exist as actual photos, they are simply stored as a new set of settings in the catalog.You can create as many virtual copies of a master photo as you wish so you can have color, sepia, B&W and different crops of the same picture yet all you are storing is a recipy of yur changes to the original file.

So having created my new collection I select all of the images (ctrl+A)  and desaturate them (V).  The I selected Library>Previews>render standard size previews which will speed up the viewing process later.  This takes quite a while with an entire years images, so I left it running overnight.

Now I have a complete collection of last years shots,  so I work my way through them using the arrow key, X to mark as a reject and P for my picks.  I whittled 3,600 images down to 9 I liked in B&W which I then saved as tiffs to give some sort of permanence to the virtual images.

Below are a few of those shots I thought you might like.

Curbar Fence

Down in the Tube Station at Midnight

Dawn in the Meadows

Trebarwith Strand

Overcast days never turn me on*

What a way to spend a Sunday Morning:

Drag yourself out of bed at 5:00 A.M. (A.M. stands for "Arrrgggh Morning" )
Drive for an hour to a very overcast Shoeburyness.
Realise you have bought your wife's wellies instead of your own!
Realise a tide that was supposed to be going out was still in.
Stand on a beach waiting for a sunrise that never materialises.
Decide that the only thing worth photographing is a sewer outflow!

Posts & Pipe
(Click to view large)

Drive home & go back to bed!
Was it worth the trip? - you decide, I'm still too sleepy to care.


*From Raspberry Beret by Prince. Whatever you do, don't google the real meaning of the lyrics - you'll never listen to it in the same way again!

Cloaning and the search for perfection

Yesterday I posted this shot on ephotozine and received the comment that, on the lower landing the floor appears a bit messy and would be improved by a bit of cloning.

Nelson's Apples ~ Somerset House
(Click to view large)

I agree entirely that as an image, the shabbiness of the landing rather distracts from the repeats and curves. But should I get out the clone tool and produce perfection?

The subject of the picture is the Nelson Stairs in Somerset House. The stairs are a very fine piece of architecture, but when I visited them they had quite a worn look and it was really rather difficult to see any part of it that didn't have a bit of damage to them. I composed this shot very carefully to avoid bringing in any of the distracting modern elements - electric lights, fire exit signs and people using the stair case.

But I still could see some of the damage to the staircase in my shot and for me this is the deciding factor on whether to clone out elements of a picture or not. If the image represents what I saw or felt about the image at the time I took the shot then I am happy to leave it as it is. If I take a landscape shot and on examining it later, I notice a coke can in the corner of the shot I am happy to clone it out as it doesn't represent what I saw at the time. For me photography is about capturing a specific moment or feeling and not creating something in the computer afterwards - though if that is what people enjoy doing I have no problem with that.

As another example here is a shot by the great portrait photographer Martin Jordan:

Sanam by Martin Jordan
(Click to view large)

OK, it's a prepared studio shot with a model but to me the fact that there is one stray hair on the side of her face destroys our perception of this being a "perfect shot" yet at the same time roots the shot in reality rather than simply being a "painted mask of ugly perfection"*.

It is so easy to produce a photoshopped version of reality that many photographers become seduced by it but I urge you to think before you reach for the clone tool next time.
What is your personal limit when it comes to manipulation? I'd love to hear some other opinions on this - please use the comments option to add your take on the nature of photoshop & reality.

*Crass - Berkertex Bribe

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A New Years Resolution

Black and White in Capture 1

As I detailed in my blogs on workflow I use Capture 1 (C1) for my raw processing. I am still waiting for the next release of C1 to compare it against Lightroom 1.1 to decide which one I will use in future but at the moment C1 produces the results I need with the minimum of fuss so I am sticking with that.

Being a fan of doing the development in the raw converter rather than Photoshop I was glad when I came across a technique the other day which details a great way to create black and white images from C1.

It's quite simple really:

• Download the file, unzip the fie and double click on the profile file to install it.
• Start Capture 1 and change the camera profile to the new one.
• Process your images as per normal to produce B&W how you like.

Cool! Here is one I processed earlier:

Moonlight Rush
(Click to view large)