BW Images From Africa Trip

[Viathelens]

In 2013 I took a trip to South Africa. I was really new to the concept of photography as an art and a passion: I only got serious about photography in 2010. I had no clue about taking shots of animals in action so I decided to focus on getting what I believed were good portrait shots. These are a few that I turned into BW. Some of these are hung on my wall and they "watch" TV with me at night, my buddies! I tend to like BW that runs more "high key" than the darker, more moody look and so these images reflect my personal taste. Also, I do like to use PS to put backgrounds in the image. Today, I am much more adept at wildlife motion shots and I am so looking forward to getting out again, hopefully by summer, to photograph wildlife again. I'm in California and today my area is on lockdown again and most of the state will follow soon so I can't even get out to local areas for the next month.

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[Icarus]

I particularly like Mom and baby elephant.

 

[Roaring 40s]

Elephants are dull coloured any way and monochrome is an improvement here.

I like #2 for the twin heads and the eye contact.

 

[Yezdi]

Very nicely done...like the shot of the elephants...

 

[frdjohns]

Very nice set.

 

[marc]

Loving the Ele embrace in #1 and although the rest are compositionally good (albeit a tad oversharpened) , they wouldn't be my choice for a monochrome conversion.
For a B&W conversion to work IMO, you really need good tonal/contrast range, ie, Darks & Lights. The last 3 share mostly the mid tone range.

 

[Kathy G]

Very nice series. I would like to see these in colour as well as BW

 

[Viathelens]

Loving the Ele embrace in #1 and although the rest are compositionally good (albeit a tad oversharpened) , they wouldn't be my choice for a monochrome conversion.
For a B&W conversion to work IMO, you really need good tonal/contrast range, ie, Darks & Lights. The last 3 share mostly the mid tone range.

Actually when printed they come out beautifully in high key, not mid-tone, nor do I see these images as mid-tone in range. Neither the numbers nor the histograms support these images as mid-tone in range. Mid-tone would be much darker than these images. Or perhaps you and I have a different interpretation of the mid-tone range in an image. In fact, the elephant image represents an image with a wide range of mid-tones, not highlights. I am just not a fan of the darker BW, although I've tried them and do have some. I guess I like the "sunnier" side of life.

 

[marc]

Actually when printed they come out beautifully in high key, not mid-tone, nor do I see these images as mid-tone in range. Neither the numbers nor the histograms support these images as mid-tone in range. Mid-tone would be much darker than these images. Or perhaps you and I have a different interpretation of the mid-tone range in an image. In fact, the elephant image represents an image with a wide range of mid-tones, not highlights. I am just not a fan of the darker BW, although I've tried them and do have some. I guess I like the "sunnier" side of life.

To each their own for sure Viathelens, please do not take this as a personal criticism.
By mid tones I meant to say mid-lights the last 3 share (mostly) the same tonal/flat/consistent range my apologies. And my comment above referred to the last 3 not the Ele image.
In my 40 yrs in this business, have never heard of the term "darker B&W" , as I said a true B&W image should contain the highest ranges in tone and contrast.
Your (last 3) B&W interpretations are more high key and that's perfectly fine.

 

[Viathelens]

To each their own for sure Viathelens, please do not take this as a personal criticism.
By mid tones I meant to say mid-lights the last 3 share (mostly) the same tonal/flat/consistent range my apologies. And my comment above referred to the last 3 not the Ele image.
In my 40 yrs in this business, have never heard of the term "darker B&W" , as I said a true B&W image should contain the highest ranges in tone and contrast.
Your (last 3) B&W interpretations are more high key and that's perfectly fine.

So, we can discuss this and have some fun with it. You say a "true B&W image should contain the highest ranges in tone and contrast." I think you meant to say that it should contain a wide range of tones, from dark to light, isn't that correct, shadows-midtones-highlights? Your looking for that "hill-type" effect in the histogram with some degree of light in each tone of the 256 tone histogram? In photography I think there are some "shoulds," but I also think there is a lot of leeway within those "shoulds" at any given time depending upon intent and visualization. If a BW image did actually spread across all of the tones in the histogram staying with that "hill-type" effect it could look quite "muddy" in nature, depending upon the image. I'm a big fan of Ansel Adams, he was born and lived just about 2 hours away from me (in the Bay Area) and I keep hoping a tiny bit of his skill will rub off on me one day (I don't think it's happened yet :( )! He was a master of tones in BW images and, yet, if you put an image on computer and looked at the histogram you would find that often the range of tones did not spread with that "hill-type" effect. Many of his images were very dark, shadows without detail, and a lot of the tones, on purpose, would be placed toward the dark side for effect and mood. Some of his greatest images were taken with a red filter in order to darken the image to fit his visualization. He was not a documentarian, he was an artist. For me, photography is an art, not a way to document my world. I work off of visualization and love to play around with images to see what I can create. I often create images with tones that lie on the right side versus the left side as they personally appeal to me. I do, also, however create BW images with a wider spread of tones. I think discussions on tonal quality are interesting but I seldom see the subject raised in photography forums.

 

[FB101]

The most striking thing though is that after all this time the Kob antelopes still haven't learnt to not sit on the toilet seats when the paint's not dry... I would have thought that by now they'd know better