Ant - B&W Perspective

Next

Previous 

Details


Ganesh H Shankar
Ant - B&W Perspective
Looks like several of us are exploring B&W. I have been looking at my collections to see which one fits the B&W better. I am really concerned now - hope I will not end up disliking color images. Now I am in a position to understand why a few folks only do B&W white photography.

B&W version of this ant image helped me portray the translucent nature of the ant better than its color version. Thanks for your views..
Sun Apr 05, 2009 12:38 pm
1325
Ganesh H Shankar's CNP Gallery       |      Send PM to Ganesh H Shankar     |       [NEW] Recent Comments by Ganesh H Shankar

--
Ganesh H. Shankar
Wishing you best light,

Image
Fine Art Nature Photography


Ganesh H Shankar  Joined CNP On 24 Apr 2008    Total Image posts 973    -   Total Image Comments 7874    -   Image Post to Comment Ratio 1:8    -   Image Comment Density 38     -     Total Forum Posts 956

Rating & SHARING


7

Post a comment


Comments

Commentby Shivakumar L Narayan on Sun Apr 05, 2009 4:38 pm

Experiments like these are really encouraging :)
Its a really tough job to look into converting the images to B&W. Personally on the above image i had preferred the color version because of the depiction of the forest in the form of moss and wetness in the bark. But that said, B&W version gives a straight forward visual emphasis to the ant and its translucent nature.
The way my thoughts are going - i feel that B&W images needs to be made on the field with lot of calculations and compromises to colour and vibrance of the subject - so that we dont end up in a dilema that "Color was good" or "B&W is good" :)

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shiv | +91 97390 36563 | www.shivakumar.net | twitter | facebook | instagram | youtube

Commentby Mahesh Devarajan on Sun Apr 05, 2009 11:53 pm

Nice experimentation Ganesh. Personally I try to go the B&W way when I want to indicate something that might have occurred in the "past". For eg images of beautiful sculptures in Belur and Halabeedu seem to go very well with B&W. One more eg is B&W images of Bangalore city taken in 1950 time frame I see in places like Higgin bothams. I guess the sense of nostalgia we experience while looking at such images can be attributed to the fact they have been made in B&W and it reminds us of the time that has lapsed.

Commentby Santosh Saligram on Mon Apr 06, 2009 11:35 am

Brilliant creation. I think what works here is the remarkable difference in luminance between the ant and the surroundings. I would have loved the distracting object on the left bottom corner not to be there. That would have made this image the very epitome of beauty in simplicity. Loved this one, Ganesh. Thanks for sharing.

Commentby Ganesh H Shankar on Mon Apr 06, 2009 12:30 pm

Shiv, I agree with you that B&W images being better made in the field. At the same time I think it needs deep understanding of color science to decide what color filter I need to put infront my lens to make an artistic B&W image. If I persue B&W I will do so for artistic expressions not for faithful representation of nature (does it make sense in B&W anyway ?). Wish I had that deep understanding of colors. I know some folks who hand made color and B&W prints during earlier days have enormous understanding of color. Given a subject they can fairly accurately tell us splits of RGB components which most of us lack (I am one amoung them). Fortunately technology helps us overcome some of those in experiences.

Mahesh, I agree with your usage of B&W to photography legacy subjects. Personally I think it can help portray the nature too in interesting ways. Other day I was looking at Nick Brandt's images of nature in B&W which you may want to check. Look at mastery of light and shadows and artistic appeal there. Of course some of them may fall into digital art category due to kind of processing done on them. The point I wanted to emphasis is artistic appeal he has brought out in those creations using B&W as medium of expression.

--
Ganesh H. Shankar
Wishing you best light,

Image
Fine Art Nature Photography



» Last edited by Ganesh H Shankar on Mon Apr 06, 2009 12:32 pm; edited 2 times in total

Commentby Mahesh Devarajan on Mon Apr 06, 2009 6:45 pm

Thanks for the image link on Nick Brandt Ganesh. One of the finest set of B&W images I have come across in the recent times. The level of emotion that comes across in the images is truly brilliant.

Commentby Pramod Viswanath on Wed Apr 08, 2009 12:04 pm

:-) What can I say? I am always taken aback by the way you think!! What a mind!

Coming to the image, I remember the greens on the back and I can "feel" it in the monochrome verymuch. The translucent nature of the ant is just superbly depicted. I don't see any nits here Ganesh except for some lessons from you about grey scale conversion. Hope you don't mind teaching me :)

--
Pramod Viswanath
Frames from wild | My Blog
Our only limitation is imagination !



» Last edited by Pramod Viswanath on Wed Apr 08, 2009 3:16 pm; edited 1 time in total

Commentby Ganesh H Shankar on Wed Apr 08, 2009 1:34 pm

Pramod, I just made my humble start towards B&W. I am not an expert in B&W - I am sure you are as good or better :)

--
Ganesh H. Shankar
Wishing you best light,

Image
Fine Art Nature Photography

Commentby Shankar Kiragi on Sat Apr 11, 2009 12:55 am

B&W season 2009 ! Just visualize, this is how other wild animals see the nature. We humans are lucky to have both Colour and B&W vision.
BTW, the ant looks crisp and attractive. In my opinion B&W images bring colour to life when subject does not have colour in life.

--
Cheers, Shankar Kiragi

Commentby Nilanjan Das on Sat Apr 11, 2009 9:04 pm

This is simply awesome. Everything about this image is pleasant. Got to start learning this technique fast now. :)

--
Nilanjan Das Photography

cron