Pristine: This was taken just after a foot of new snow in West Geyser Basin. I am new to converting color to B & W. I feel I have gone full circle, as I started with B & W film 50...

brjomd Loc: Carlsbad, California

This was taken just after a foot of new snow in West Geyser Basin. I am new to converting color to B & W. I feel I have gone full circle, as I started with B & W film 50 years ago.
I would appreciate any suggestions as to how to make this better?

Pristine

(Download)

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

I enjoyed b&w film very much, also (not quite 50 years ago, but still :) ). And with our recent "Thinking in black and white" threads, I'd love if you would discuss how you approach a scene and consider the composition for b&w. Would you talk about that a bit?

Regarding this image, for me a slight crop would remove the distraction of the lower right corner: the shoveled path and the railing are trying to take me out of the frame. Also there is a lot of foreground that is perhaps not needed to the story?

I can even see a horizontal flip as a way to draw our eye into the scene. However, I know how disconcerting it can be to have been there and know the scene, and to have someone flip it - so I fully understand if you hate this :)

Frank2013 Loc: San Antonio, TX. & Milwaukee, WI.

brjomd wrote:

I would appreciate any suggestions as to how to make this better?

I would enjoy experimenting with your image to see what I come up with. If I get anything I like I would be happy to share what I did. If you post your original color shot I'll give it a try and I'm sure other would also.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

brjomd wrote:

This was taken just after a foot of new snow in West Geyser Basin. I am new to converting color to B & W. I feel I have gone full circle, as I started with B & W film 50 years ago.
I would appreciate any suggestions as to how to make this better?

Hi, brjomd,

My only suggestion is a crop to to vertical to emphasize the depth of the image. As always, I tried a horizontal flip, but much prefer the un-flipped version .

Dave

Crop to vertical
Crop to vertical...

R.G. Loc: Scotland

To make the disappearing walkway a bit more of a draw you could lighten it a bit and reduce the highlights of the foreground snow. In fact if you reduced highlights overall you'd probably find you could give it a touch more contrast overall, although the darkest parts of the sky might then need a bit of Shadows lifting.

I would say the moon is too small to be identifiable and I'd be inclined to just get rid of it.

The visible part of the path bottom right goes against the title (and therefore the intention? ). I'd try a bit of careful cloning to get rid of it, and if that didn't work, I'd crop as Linda did.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

OK, it's not quite the dramatic improvement that I envisaged :-) . But if you squint a bit you can just about imagine that it's better......

-

(Download)

Billyspad Loc: The Philippines

Would say highlights need taming and contrast increasing but it would be a great idea if you posted the colour original you started with so those that can have a chance to turn the idea into reality. Should be good practice. Not much snow here in the tropics so my try may not be the best.

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

I too started with monochrome almost sixty years ago but have not been interested in returning to it. However, this picture does work in black and white. Perhaps because of the timeless nature (no artifacts indicating when the picture was shot), the straight-forward starkness, and the delicacy of the snow (something hard to achieve), the excellent tonal range and contrast. How much to crop from the foreground is only a matter of taste. My big issue with the picture is the unevenness of the sky. Looks like this was taken with a polarizer which can give an uneven sky. I would burn in the right so that the darkness matches the left side.

Thanks for posting.

Bloke Loc: Waynesboro, Pennsylvania

brjomd wrote:

This was taken just after a foot of new snow in West Geyser Basin. I am new to converting color to B & W. I feel I have gone full circle, as I started with B & W film 50 years ago.
I would appreciate any suggestions as to how to make this better?

Looking at the sky, it appears that you were using a polarizing filter on a very wide-angle lens? This is what causes the shift in 'colour' across the sky.

I have no answer to fixing this - having been caught with this myself in the past, I would appreciate anyone else who does have!

abc1234 Loc: Elk Grove Village, Illinois

Bloke wrote:

Looking at the sky, it appears that you were using a polarizing filter on a very wide-angle lens? This is what causes the shift in 'colour' across the sky.

I have no answer to fixing this - having been caught with this myself in the past, I would appreciate anyone else who does have!

A graduated neutral density filter would help.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

brjomd wrote:

This was taken just after a foot of new snow in West Geyser Basin. I am new to converting color to B & W. I feel I have gone full circle, as I started with B & W film 50 years ago.
I would appreciate any suggestions as to how to make this better?

Perhaps there is some consideration to composition, but the first thing that strikes me is exposure. There are several good posts here regarding ETTR and EBTR. Also, shooting in Manual Mode would be useful in this situation.
--Bob

brjomd Loc: Carlsbad, California

Thank you for your constructive critiques. I agree with the cropping, especially to preserve the "Prisitine" theme.
BTW, it was shot with a Nikon D800e, Nikon 24-70 f/2.8 @ 24mm, iso200, 1/500 f/5...and yes abc1234 a polarizing filter.
I am having internet issues and cannot upload the original color photo nor the B & W cropped. I will hopefully do that, for you consideration, in the next day or so.
Thank you again and enjoy your weekend.
Bruce