Getting my black and white on

I finished my first season as a gallery artiste recently. I've had several photographs hanging in an art gallery in Door County, Wisconsin since May of this year. A few brave souls even found it within themselves to part with some money to be able to take my work home with them.

The gallery is now closed for the season and it's time to start making plans for next year. I'm refining my black and white digital processing techniques to put a higher level of visual impact in my fine art photos.

Things I've learned so far (and didn't necessarily know going in to my first season as a b&w fine art photog):

Always convert color files to b&w. Yeah, I know digital cameras come with a b&w mode. Don't use it. Why?

Because back in the days of film (you remember those days, don't you?), serious b&w photographers would use color filters to translate what they saw in the chromatic world into an image comprised of shades of gray. They used red filters to darken the sky, yellow or orange filters to play up foliage and green filters to enhance skin tones. Blue filters? I don't know. Maybe if you were shooting someone wearing an Oakland A's uniform. Indoors.

Today, image editing programs like Photoshop allow you to run hundreds (nay, thousands) of possible color filter combinations over your color file before locking it in to b&w. You don't necessarily need to know the difference between what a yellow filter does as opposed to a red or green filter when converting a black and white image -- a couple of adjustment sliders will display an infinite number of variations -- just pick the one that looks good to you and you're good to go.

This image of gingko leaves was shot as a color RAW file. In Photoshop, the image was converted to black and white by way of two Hue & Saturation adjustment layers. One changed the color image to b&w, the other acted as the filter that enhanced tones. Below, you can see the difference that filtering makes.

On the left is a straight grayscale conversion of the color image file. On the right is the "filtered" version. The tones across the leaves are smoother and richer and there is more detail in the shadow areas.



I finished the photo at the top of this post by adding a slight Orton effect and then applying a green color filter at 25 percent strength to add a silver gelatin print effect to the image.

Can't wait to have another go at the gallery stuff.

Photographs © 2009 James Jordan.

Creation, Day 3

What the dawn of time may have looked like. Taken at one of my favorite places on earth -- Cave Point, Door County Wisconsin.

Taken with a circular polarizer, 2-stop neutral density filter and graduated ND filter. Photograph © 2009 James Jordan.

Wintery thoughts

Random thoughts from where I sit on a Friday:

I enjoyed being out in the first snowfall of the winter. This is the time of year when wintery weather like snow is still a novelty. Ask me again in January and I might have a different answer for you.

Five degrees above zero this morning and I dragged 18 bags of leaves to the curb for the final pickup of the season. First I had to unbury them, then break them free from the icy clutches of the ground beneath them without ripping the bags - they seem to get cheaper every year. This is the first year in several that I have been successful in getting all my leaves raked/blown/bagged and to the curb on time. Nothing awaiting my attention next spring. Woo hoo!

Today is the three-month anniversary of the Gang of 24's last day at work for The Company. I really, really miss my old cubicle (snort/snicker). A number of the Gang keep in touch by e-mail. All but a couple of the Gang are still looking for full time work.

It's a tough job market for marketing/communications types like myself. There are a good number of job postings, but companies are very, very particular about who they're hiring these days. No on-the-job-training or getting acclimated to their particular industry is allowed. If you can't hit the ground running, fuhgeddaboudit. Oh, and the job descriptions! They're packing enough responsibilities in those babies to keep three or four people swamped. You need blue leotards, a red cape and a big yellow "S" on your chest to make the first cut anymore.

Totals so far - 900+ resumes sent via e-mail, 50+ ads responded to, 50+ resumes sent via snail mail. About 1,000 contacts made in the last three months. The results - two first-round interviews. I'm batting .002. Hoping things will pick up after the first of the year. Really - how can they not?

So I'm kind of like the tree in the above photo. I'm reaching, stretching out toward the forest of opportunities I see ahead of me on the other side of the clearing. Still elusive, but still hopeful that I'll get there.

Click on this post's headline for image EXIF data. Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © James Jordan.

Snowy oak

Photographically making the best of being located in the suburbs. I took advantage of an early winter white-out to photograph some nature nestled among the houses, stores and highways. For those readers in the northwest Chicago suburbs, this was taken from the entrance driveway of Harvest Bible Chapel on Randall Road in Elgin. For those readers in the UK, Canada or Singapore, it's right here.

Look closely in the lower left of this photo and you'll see traces of a Home Depot store.

Color was added with a graduated 2-stop tobacco filter (I didn't name the color).

More thoughts, tips and examples of making naturey-type pictures in the 'burbs on my photography advice blog.

Click on this post's headline for image EXIF data. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

A face in the crowd

I am that face in the crowd. Today I am joining a growing demographic group - the unemployed. The Company needed to relieve the pressure that months of declining sales presented. A number of us were told yesterday that our positions were eliminated. My departure was my final act of service to The Company after 17 years.

Options are being weighed. Contacts have been initiated. We'll see where this road leads. Until I find out, though, I'll identify myself with a crowd of people in this struggling economic picture. Call us the Class of 2008.

By the way, anybody looking for a media-savvy writer/producer/creative communicator with a background in publishing and marketing? Just thought I'd ask.

Photo: Crown Fountain, Millennium Park, Chicago. Two-stop graduated neutral density filter. Photograph © 2008 James Jordan.

Fire over the meadow

This is a filter-aided attempt at capturing a dramatic sunset. The sky just wasn’t happening the way I anticipated, so I pulled out the 2-stop graduated tobacco filter and played around with it.

It livened up the sky considerably, turning a fairly blah photo into a better photo (picture without the filter is shown below). Every camera kit should include some filters - a circular polarizer, an 81b warming filter, a 2-stop graduated neutral density filter and the 2-stop graduated tobacco are a good start. Just sayin.'

Ah well. At least I was able to get a couple of moon pics out of the trip (see the posts from the last two days).

Click on pictures to enlarge. Photographs © 2008 James Jordan.