32 Outdoor Photography February 2018If there’s one fault that we see time and
time again in black & white landscape
images it is – for want of a bett er
word – a lack of ‘oomph’. Why so many
monochrome images lack contrast ,
drama and impact , I am not totally sure,
but it may be that some photographers
are ‘afraid’ of the extremes of black and
white. Avoiding blocked shadows and
blown highlights is something that has
been drilled into us so oft en that it’s
made us wary of allowing pure black
and pure white into our images. In a
colour image that is probably not a bad
thing, but in a monochrome photograph
those blacks and whites are crucial
ingredients, without which there are only
the less dramatic grey tones in between.
Making a successful black &
white conversion therefore requires
confi dence and purpose. If you are too
subtle with the process you will end
up with lacklust re results, so don’t feel
you have to hold back; if a conversion
doesn’t work you can always undo it and
try diff erent parameters inst ead.
There are numerous applications
and plug-ins you can use to convert
Raw colour images to monochrome at
the touch of a butt on. One of the best
is Silver Efex Pro 2, which is part of the
fantast ic (and free of charge) suite of
Nik Collect ion applications supported
by DxO (nikcollect ion.dxo.com). I tendto use Silver Efex Pro 2 to make my
initial black & white conversion (its
High Struct ure preset is particularly
good if you like punchy black & white
images) and then open the converted
image in Photoshop to make localised
adjust ments using Levels or Curves.
You don’t need to be an editing
expert to produce great results, just
a bit of creativity and confi dence,
and the ability to put ‘realism’ to oneside. If you mainly shoot colour, your
fi nal processed images will oft en be
realist ic interpretations of the subject or
scene you photographed, but black &
white is fundamentally ‘unreal’, so your
monochrome images don’t have to be
grounded in what you see around you.
I’m not suggest ing that you go crazy with
your processing, but a photograph that
st arts life looking fl at and grey certainly
doesn’t have to st ay that way.TO BOLDLY GO...
Above
Cracked lake ice
and Kirkjufell,
Snæfellsnes,
Iceland.
Canon EOS
5D MkIII with
17-40mm f/4 L
lens, ISO 100,
1/8sec at f/11,
0.9 soft ND
grad, tripodView to Rum from Laig Bay, Isle of Eigg, Scotland.
Canon EOS 1Ds MkIII with 16-35mm f/2.8 L II lens, ISO 100, 28sec at f/22,
B+W 10-st op ND, 0.6 hard ND grad, tripodSkeletal trees and freshly fallen snow, near Geysir, Iceland.
Canon EOS 5Ds with 70-300mm f/4-5.6 L lens, ISO 800, 1/400sec
at f/10, handheld28_34_Technique_227_SW.indd 32 18/12/2017 15:05