pradeep satyaprakash

Just a fun capture of the start of the color change season here in Georgia

I have not done too much work with B&W, but after looking at old

photographs taken by my father from the 1960s and 1970s in B&W, I

started to appreciate them more. There is something about the stark

contrast of values that appeals to me. When I got into digital

photography, strong, bright, punchy, and saturated color work was

where I gravitated towards, but now I am discovering that B&W has much

to offer. Most of the B&W photos in my portfolio were conversion from

a color original. What I find is that by distilling the image to tonal

values, much more detail can be brought out. The sharpness and

contrasts that normally are hidden in a color image can be much more

easily discernible in a B&W conversion of the same image.

 

What I am trying to emphasize in this image is the strong vertical

line of the corner of the building contrasted to the strong diagonal

lines from the shadows from the fire escape. Although this took some

playing with and cropping, it looks good, I think. The only thing that

I could not do is adjust the way the windows lean at an odd angle to

the rest of the frame. Maybe some more judicious cropping can improve

this composition.

I have not done too much work with B&W, but after looking at old photographs taken by my father from the 1960s and 1970s in B&W, I started to appreciate them more. There is something about the stark contrast of values that appeals to me. When I got into digital photography, strong, bright, punchy, and saturated color work was where I gravitated towards, but now I am discovering that B&W has much to offer. Most of the B&W photos in my portfolio were conversion from a color original. What I find is that by distilling the image to tonal values, much more detail can be brought out. The sharpness and contrasts that normally are hidden in a color image can be much more easily discernible in a B&W conversion of the same image.

 

What I am trying to emphasize in this image is the strong vertical line of the corner of the building contrasted to the strong diagonal lines from the shadows from the fire escape. Although this took some playing with and cropping, it looks good, I think. The only thing that I could not do is adjust the way the windows lean at an odd angle to the rest of the frame. Maybe some more judicious cropping can improve this composition.

This is my first deliberate B&W conversion with a goal of improving the image and also trying to use the techniques (dodging, burning, selective contrast) I've read about. Most other B&W conversions I've done with film or digital have just been simple conversions where I just hit the desaturate button.

Going back to my film roots to do some B&W work.

My first B&W conversion. I am trying to learn from Adams and use his

way of thinking to grow in my photography. This is my first attempt at

B&W conversion from color.

Please click on the photo above to view as a large image.

 

Also, you can see the original color version here:

 

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6333196&size=lg

...

I saw this interesting mural on the wall of public school 41 in Greenwich Village. I took the photo not thinking much about it other than capturing a travel pic. But when I looked at it, I saw the walled up door. It felt kind of disjointed to have a walled up door with the symbols of freedom painted over it. I wonder if this was some type of subterfuge comment about the current political system in the United States. Most likely not, considering this is an elementary school. But you never know, children nowadays are more precocious than we were, and this school is in Greenwich Village.

Freakishly good! :)

After looking at the comments about dark right side and blown highlights on the left, I brought this image up on a good color/contrast/black/white calibrated monitor and on it I can see detail in both the deep shadows on the right and in the highlighted area on the left. The only place that info is seemingly lacking is in the darkest portion on the top right, but I am sure I could bring that out with some post processing work.

 

I think the comments are more due to improperly calibrated monitors more than the actual photo.

 

What do you guys think?

It was a very dark, overcast, cold, and gloomy day when I took the photo. I had planned to set up my tripod carefully and take many exposure bracketed shots so I could come back and do an HDR image and also some panaromas. Well, it ended up being below freezing when we got there. Las Vegas was in the 80 deg. F range and the canyon was so much colder than I had expected, so I didn't properly plan for it. I didn't have good gloves, so I could not set up the tripod. I had to hastily snap away these photos. I shot RAW and exposed to the right to capture shadow detail. This photo was a quick edit. I need to go back and work some Photoshop magic to bring out all the details. But the dynamic range was so large in this photo, it was difficult to get both the bright left side and dark right side properly exposed without resorting to HDR with multiple exposures.

Photograph of the creative work of Dale Chihuly. This is the roof of

the reception area of the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. What do you

guys think?

Please click on the photo itself to view the LARGER version for better detail.

I took this photo on a very overcast and blah day at the Canyon. I

lucked out and had a break in the clouds. What do you guys think?

Please click on the photo itself to view the LARGER version, which is worth it!

I like the composition with the glass and the plate. I feel the background blinders and the house siding to be distracting. How about shooting this outside with the glass, plate, and the green grass mowed in perpendicular lines like you have it. That would be surreal.

Hi Richard, this photo reminds me of the Windows XP default background. :)

Thank you Meehan for your kind words. I used a tripod, and the exposure was for 10 seconds at f/4.0 at ISO 100. I didn't use a flash, but the tree was side lit by our back porchlight. I shot it in RAW and cleaned up the exposure a bit and also changed the color cast from the incandescent bulb to more of a neutral daylight balance.

Wow, amazing shot!

It is so nice to see Hindu culture flourishing outside of India. Wonderful!

I took this photo in my backyard at night. I thought taking the

photo then would let the colors of the leaves stand out with the

absence of sunlight. I think it worked well. The photo is a bit soft

in focus, because it was very difficult focusing using the D30's

viewfinder in the very low light levels I was working with. What do

you think?

This is a photo of my cousin's daughter. I liked the play of varied saturated colors from the flowers she is holding, to the colorful saris in the background.

powerful

Very nice work. Looks like you've used some type of HDR technique. I don't really like the boat coming out of the lighthouse. Otherwise, very nice.