Summer Clouds

Again, this was photographed using my converted Canon Rebel xt,

converted to take only infrared images. I was intrigued by the clouds

and attempted to photograph the image so the immensity of the clouds

was demonstrated by the tiny people on the beach (I was on the 7th

floor of a building photographing down on the beach). I value your

opinion on the composition of this image. Thank you.

Lynn, I don't want to wear out my welcome, if I have not done so already, but I do have a suggestion--like that's a surprise.

I enjoy your photographs for two reasons; first they are extremely interesting, above average and done with purpose and secondly because you are one of the very few photographers that seems to be expressing any intent in your comments. I almost never critique a photograph otherwise. I make an assumption that a photograph posted to a critique forum is to be critiqued, it is not necessary to mention that but it is necessary to mention what the photographer is trying to do with the photograph so the critic will have some idea where to start or at least what the photographer wishes to know beyond, "great photo." You do that so you are getting stuck with me. Sorry. LOL

This is another exceptional photograph that you have handled beautifully well. The suggestion: I do not know what software you are using but find the histogram. Sometimes it is combined with Levels. You will notice that there is a sizable gap between right edge of the graph and the right edge of the box which indicates that your whites are not quite as white as they could possibly be. Below the right corner of the box is the white adjustment slider. Slide the white slider over until the vertical line that moves with the slider just kisses the right edge of the graph. The photograph will be much more dramatic and of course you can adjust the slider back and forth until you find just the amount of drama that you want.

Lynn, here is a screen capture of the histogram my software is showing on the download from Pnet.

Here the only adjustment was moving the white slider to the edge of the graph. Does this look like the one you have on your computer?

I am still getting blocked when trying to reply directly from your posts. Not really a problem, I can always reply by going to your profile and issuing a new post or replying in the thread which might be better because it gives a permenant record in one place.

You asked if there was another way to whiten the whites. You can use your White Point Tool on an area of the cloud that is the very brightest. You may have to reduce luminosity after you do that to keep from blowing out some of the brighter whites. Using the white slider on levels is usually more controllable, not as drastic. Using Threshold my software does not indicate any blown highlights in this revision. There are some blocked shadows in the dark areas of the clouds but nothing to be concerned about.

Are you capturing the images in color and then converting or are the images originally monochrome? If you are going from color to mono what are you using for the conversion. You can see I don't do infrared. LOL

Lynn, you originally asked about composition—I do not see how you could have done it any better. This is absolutely magnificent. The horizon is perfect, the slope of the beach keeps it the lower portion from being static. And the clouds define sweep. Great movement. But the most interesting thing about this photograph is that it puts into perspective our significance in the grand scheme of things. Everytime I see a photograph similar to this with people on a beach I want to grab Keat’s When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be “…then on the shore of the wide world I stand alone and think till love and fame to nothingness do shrink.” This is a powerful image.

Lynne, I agree with Gary

In this type of photo, that is emphasis on a subject that is by nature having white, like clouds or snow and especially if it is a black and white image, I make the brightest spots in the photo 99% luminosity and have a steep luminosity curve to produce dramatic contrasts, unless for some reason I want a subdued image. I agree with your composition to have the horizon line about 1/7 of the way up the image, so the sky will dwarf the beach.

Dan

Very appealing clouds. I am curious if you can take the same image using regular camera and convert it into BW to get the same effect. Is use of infra red necessary for this photo?

Thanks... Sandeep

Sandeep, as far as the sky is concerned you can achieve a very similar look if your conversion software has an option to apply a deep red filter. In the film days you could get a very, very dark, almost black, in the blue sky by using either a 25a deep red or 29 dark red filter—very, very similar to what Lynn has achieved in this photograph. In using color filters on black and white the filter lightens its own color and darkens its complimentary color. The deep red filter would lighten, almost to the point of being white anything that is red and will darken its complimentary color which is cyan.
There is a lot of cyan in the blue of the sky so the sky goes very dark.

What you cannot do is achieve the same effect in foliage and skin tones which in infrared go very light. You can lighten foliage by using a green filter (can’t remember the number of the standard but the 58 tri color would work) but the green filter also lightens the sky because of the green component of cyan. The red filter that you can use to darken the sky will also darken any green foliage, the opposite of infrared. There is also a “glowing” quality to infrared that sets it apart from regular black and white.

Many imaging software programs have a pseudo-infrared filter/action/script which you can apply. It captures some of the qualities of infrared but never is quite the same.

Thanks Gary. I think same effect is achieved in photoshop if you convert image to BW using channel mixer. By default it uses red channel as 100%. Just leave that setting as default and you will get filter effect. You can also mix slightly other channels to get different toning effects.

Take a look at this photo converted by channel mixer:

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=14692713&size=lg

These are also storm clouds. They have nice definition and three dimensional effect. I left the foreground dark just to make it more dramatic but I can also make it lighter and make composite image (sky from one image, foreground from lighter image). This is 85mm shot.

Lynne, hope you won't mind little diversion.

Sandeep

I don't think you get quite as vast a range of tonality if you shoot in color, convert to B&W and process from there.  I think the most dramatic images come from the converted cameras.

I'm happy to create a discussion.  It's wonderful to see different points of view.  Thanks Gary, Sandeep and Dan for your praise and great suggestions for improvement.  Keep 'em coming.

I find the composition very interesting: triangles (beach and sea) and curves(clouds) work well together; the small people against the immensity of the sky... this scene makes me thinking. I agree with you: the better infrared images came from converted cameras and, of course, from infrared films! Compliments for your work and thank you for your visit. Best regards.