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Salzburg, Austria

"No place is boring if you've had a good night's sleep and a pocket full of film." - Robert Adams
​
"Tea first, then photography..." - Philip Lee Harvey

From an Article written by Philip Lee Harvey

When to Choose Color

3/9/2018

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Picture
Picture
I am a massive fan of B&W images, probably why I love film so much. From my perspective, digital B&W can only approximate the beauty of film, but that is the subject for another blog with much more detail. Today I just wanted to focus on why I sometimes do choose to photograph in color.

First, why I took this shot this way....
Above are two, exactly the same images taken in London with a Nikon D800. It was a typical winter day in London which means cloudy and wet. I am standing on a bank of the Thames, on a set of stairs that lead up to Westminster Bridge.  I like this vantage point because you can just get people's faces but avoid distracting clothing. If I go farther down the stairs, I would get no people, just the bridge and tower. 

What I wanted to capture was the cloud cover, let me explain. For a photographer, there are different types of clouds. There are white fluffy clouds that are dispersed through the blue sky that helps the sky to really jump out. There is the flat gray clouds without texture, which is excellent for portrait photography as it gives the best light I have ever seen but it gives a very dull backdrop.  Then you have the storm clouds, these can fill an image with tension as we naturally want to get away from it. And finally you have the well textured set of clouds. These provide an interesting background which can really help balance out a landscape image. This, of course, were the clouds I saw that morning in London.

I chose an aperture of f/8 as this is the sweet spot of the lens, and boosted the ISO to 400 to ensure that I would have a fast shutter speed (in this case 1/1000 of a second).  When shooting moving people, with a Nikon D800 I prefer very fast shutter speeds (over 1/250th of a second) which helps eliminate blur caused by movement, either the subject or my own. 

I waited to ensure no busses or trucks were crossing the bridge and captured the image above. I shot the same scene twice, to help eliminate the possibility of having some odd facial expression from a passerby.  I find that two images, when taking shots of multiple people, helps you filter out and odd face or movement that one of the people created. 

Why some images only work in color?
There are images we have all taken with striking color. This visual element can make an image come together. When this happens we use color as a compositional tool, I wrote about this HERE and it can be a powerful tool.  


The Selection of Color vs B&W
I must say that this image works both in color and B&W. I like the contrast captured in the B&W image but I also like the gold and green in the color photograph.  So when an image can work either in B&W or in Color I will typically choose B&W.  

Why som 
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    Patrick...confirmed film & digital photography addict.

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Photos used under Creative Commons from left-hand, Ant Jackson, Skley, mikecogh, Helen.Yang, TheeErin, Dean Hochman, CJS*64, DaveR1988, FootMassagez, Loco Steve, dmytrok, Christiaan Colen
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Vintage Cameras
    • Argus 75
    • Brownie Flash II
    • Contax G2
    • Ensign Selfix 820
    • FED-1 (PE0320)
    • Graflex Crown Graphic
    • Ihagee Exa
    • Leica M6
    • Nikon S2
    • Nikon F
    • Nikon F2
    • Nikon F3
    • Nikon FA
    • Olympus OM-1
    • Olympus OM-2 SPOT
    • Olympus Stylus
    • Pentacon Six
    • Pentax Spotmatic IIa
    • Rollei 35
    • Voigtlander 15mm ver III
    • Yashica C
    • Zeiss Ikon Nettar 515/2
  • Learning Composition
    • The Monochrome Diaries
    • Single & Multi Elements
    • Symmetry
    • Keep the Right Strong
    • Framing
    • Color in Composition
    • Deep Dive Bubble Man
    • Photo Assignments
  • Darkroom Lessons
    • Building a Sink
    • Air Ventilation
    • Analyser Pro
    • Development Hints
    • Primer for Film Photography
    • Bulk Loading Film
    • Pushing & Pulling Film
    • Color Development
    • Digital Contact Sheets
    • Stick to One Film Stock?
    • HP5+ Shot at 200 ISO
    • HP5 Shot at 1600 ISO
    • HP5 Shot at 3200 ISO
    • Medium Format
    • Washing Film
    • Split Grade Printing
    • Using Distilled Water in Film Development
    • Darkroom Paper
    • Foma100 EI 400
  • Photography Books & Films
    • Colin O'Brien
    • Lartigue Life in Color
    • Magnum Contact Sheets
    • Top Photography Movies
    • William Eggleston's Guide
    • Helen Levitt
    • Sally Mann Immediate Family
    • Saul Leiter Early B&W
    • Leica 100 yrs
    • Calendar Days of Asaya Hamaya
    • The Decisive Moment
    • Regarding Women
    • Robert Capa in Love and War
  • Single Image Deep Dive
    • Sergio Larrain "A Man After Dark"
    • Colin O'Brien 'Comings & Goings"
    • Erwitt Mother & Child
    • Man Running
    • Samuel Becket
    • Koudelka Wristwatch
    • Dovima with Elephants