Tag: structure

The Power of Seeing Monochrome: Tones of Black and White

Posted on May 24, 2017 by Simran Nanwani

Colors have a way to give you a bright and cheerful feeling. There is just something about a photo that speaks colors. It brings out that energy and brightens up your day with it. Did you know that even photos in Black and White/Monochrome can intrigue you?

Black and White definitely gives you a retro feeling of the olden days, when photographers like Andre Kertesz, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Fan Ho created wonderful artistic memories. At the same time, in current times you will find many photographers including myself, trying to experiment shooting or even editing in Black and White to create a different moment with a touch of the past.

How do we find the right photo to edit in Black and White? Or maybe capture a moment in Black and White?

In a recent assignment titled “Cities in Black and White” on National Geographic by Matt Adams, I tried to experiment and submit to the assignment. We were allowed to edit photos into black and white. In the assignment, Matt gave us a guide as to what to see or how to find the right photo to edit. It was not easy to choose the colored photos to transform them in Black and White yet, it was a fun learning experience. It has also continued to help and guide me to keep improving and trying out various edits to get the right tones of Black and White.

Seeing through black and white can be a challenge but it can be simple. We have been quite accustomed to having the option of shooting in color that when looking at black and white it feels too plain. It is in that simplicity that many great moments have been created in the past and even today.

The photo above has been shot in pure black and white. There was the “Weekend Hashtag Project WHP” on Instagram at the time titled “Shadows and Light” if I recall correctly. This project helped me to experiment capturing in black and white. I saw the chair and the sunlight during the day was pretty good to create a shadow effect. From a particular angle, I captured the shot, to portray the serenity of the moment using the chair as my object.

We now turn to comparing between color and monochrome photos to see how editing and conversion can also bring out a good black and white tone to photos.

This prominent red colored photo of an art gallery brings the moment to life with the red, the artwork and the structures. I chose this photo to transform it into black and white. As you will see once transformed, there is a completely new sense of the moment. Everything is the same the artwork, structure, and perspective. We can’t say that color is missing as the essence is the same. It is now just a matter of personal preference.

In this photo, the raindrops with the bluish green background bring the raindrops to life with every detail of it. After we convert it to black and white we can see not just the raindrops are alive but every single aspect of the photo is visible. There is complete clarity. The black and white is my personal preference as it defines what I wanted to capture the moment.

Walking around Patan Durbar Square, Nepal this scene was quite pleasant. The details of the wonderful palace building with the sunlight blue skies and people walking around created a lovely moment. Capturing this in color and after a while transforming it to black and white, made the moment feel more captivating. The details of every aspect pop out more through monochromatic tones.

The insides of Patan Museum, Nepal was a feast for the eyes. The architecture and intricacy kept me fascinated looking for various aspects to capture this royal beauty. As we entered, without thinking I just clicked this scene of the girl standing and people sitting around. After completing the National Geographic assignment, I tried experimenting by converting this image to black and white and turns out the transformed version is much better. It focuses completely on the girl standing thus, creating a complete moment around it.

This moment was another pure black and white capture inside a Cathedral. The lighting inside was perfect to bring out the details and the black and white tones defined this moment entirely.

Lastly, through this patterned inside ground of Istiqlal Mosque, we can see how the colors combined with the skies form symmetry. Patterns can help to define black and white tones in moments more. Changing the image to black and white gives it a refined touch where all the lines and structure come in harmony together.

There is no perfect combination or formula to doing it right, just simply practicing. Fan Ho said, “it was always his goal to wait for the lighting and composition to fall into place when photographing.” That could be our benchmark when capturing in monochrome. As for editing, there could be many things we can take into consideration like patterns, structure, architecture or even people. It really all depends on finding the right balance and tones to convert it. Requires a lot of trial and error to get what you are looking for in the photo.

Monochrome will continue to be something we experiment on as we do not have the limit of films and that is what makes it a challenge. The questions of how did they do it in the past? How did they learn the balance of composition? The simplicity and limit enhanced their creativity to get it right. They were able to capture the essence of what composition is not quickly, but smoothly. With color, it can feel like we have more distractions when focusing on an object or moment. Both has its positives, eventually, the choice is ours to make and create photos to share and inspire.

Shooting Angles – What to Look to Click?

Posted on April 28, 2017 by Simran Nanwani

“You may find that the picture you want to do can only be made from a certain place, and you’re not there, so you have to physically go there. And that participation may spur you on to work harder on the thing, because in the physical change of position you start seeing a whole different relationship.” – Jay Maisel

yellow

The quote above by Jay Maisel perfectly expresses how interesting and challenging it can be to capture angles. Through my captures, I have somehow always had the tendency on shooting angles. I can’t recall when it all began but there is just something about it. It could be through looking up at buildings, or an exquisite architecture of a building, or lines and structure, or an alley, or even looking down or just simply whilst capturing macro shots of flowers. Photography is an expression of how we envision moments or things around us. Perspective and angles are a unique way to express the vistas of everything around us creating an impression and imprint in our minds.

It isn’t something that can be planned as it requires observation and experimenting as well. As always, letting it come naturally to you is the best way to capture angles. There may be times when nothing motivates you to do an angled shot and that is completely okay. The moment will instantaneously present itself to you and all you will need to do is “click”.

structure

This outward structure of the National Stadium spoke to me. I began by looking up, clicking and experimenting the numerous aspects of the building. Experimenting would be by pointing and shifting your camera in various directions to frame the shot. It took a number of clicks to get the above results. To frame this shot, I wanted it to also have a minimalist touch so as to not completely focus on only the structure but leaving the blank space as well.

flower macro

Nature and flowers are one of the easiest ways to try out various angles. This lovely pink half budding rose fascinated me. I wanted to try to get a specific viewpoint to portray as if the rose was looking at you. Balancing between getting close to the rose, composing the image properly and getting the right proportion was as interesting as much as a challenge.

curves of Stadium

“As people, we love pattern. But interrupted pattern is more interesting.” – Jay Maisel

Jay Maisel nailed it again with the above quote to describe the way I felt when capturing the image above. Standing in front of the National Stadium seeing all these patterns, lines, colours and structure was spectacular. It’s like all these elements came together for me to venture and shoot.

Check – Mate

Street photography can also be a perfect place to try and play out various outlooks. On a walking tour, I found two men playing chess and it intrigued me to explore a particular angle to capture the shot. So, I tried the side way peeking approach for a change, to focus more on the people and the chess board as a whole.

crowd

This particular mall has a unique architecture giving one a nostalgic feeling transporting you back in time. Whilst looking down, I wanted to capture the curved aspect with the lamps and lines in frame. Thus, a combination of colours, people and structure into one framed picture.

look

And here is the instantaneous moment that nature presents itself to you. Sitting at the restaurant, I randomly looked down, played with my iPhone by framing angles and hit the shutter. The whole scene filled with pretty wood interiors and layout was quite delightful to build into a moment.

crisp

Looking up through the details of a building has never been more fun if you can capture it in a completely distinct way. The idea behind this capture was to have the symmetrical shape on top, which is part of the top portion of the building I was in, look like it forms a cover of the other building. I tilted my phone so this captured moment directs your eyes upwards.

stand tall

Awed by the architecture of this airport in Kuala Lumpur, I wanted to snap this whole scene but focusing more on the lines and architecture. Yet, another spontaneous shot.

alley

Something about this exhibition and the rows making it seem like an alley, motivated me to point and shoot. Just to have a glimpse of what the exhibition was about and have a sort of symmetry was my main aim when framing the shot.

open

Lastly, standing inside the building I casually looked out and noticed the door ajar in the middle and the lovely blue on the outside. It definitely was a moment not to miss capturing. Angling from a few places and with a few clicks, voila this moment was created.

pink bud

Every angled shot makes you think outside the box bringing the image a new flavor. Playing with perspectives has allowed me to explore a new side and style to photography. It is like allowing nature to speak to you and at the same time being creative to make an image stand out. There are no set rules to achieve it but simply being alert and listening to the moment. Let’s continue to enjoy the various points of view and keep clicking!

Giving life to the sky – Circular polarizer filter

Posted on April 4, 2016 by Leonardo Regoli

Landscape photography is a complex subject with many variables that need to be taken into account when composing your image while having too little to no control at all in terms of the elements and illumination sources (except for fill flash, but that’s a completely different subject). The whole capture process starts before leaving home when you are planning your photos and finishes when you are back at home while you post-process your images.

In order to make the post-processing stage as simple as possible, it is important that the image you get out of your camera is as close as possible to the final result you want to achieve.

When capturing landscapes, the sky usually plays an important role in the composition and, apart from that, it is also one of the trickiest parts of the image when it comes to processing, mainly because any change in local contrast leads to an increase in appreciable noise.

In this post, we will look at a simple way of getting good structure and local contrast in the sky while capturing your image. It basically involves the use of circular polarizer filters.

Circular polarizer filters

Light is everywhere. All our lives are affected by it and, in face, life would not be possible without it. However, it still is one of the most complex elements in nature. Light is the visual part of the so-called electromagnetic spectrum that goes from the low frequency radio waves to high frequency gamma rays.

One of the strangest things about light is that it behaves both as particles (photons) and as waves and it is this latter characteristic that allows polarizer filters to work. Light can be seen as electromagnetic waves being propagated in space and as such, the magnetic field and the electric field can travel at different angles and this affects how light gets into the sensor of your camera.

Now, without complicating things further, let’s take that last sentence for granted and focus on what matters from the point of view of photography. Circular polarizer filters basically achieve a specific polarization that has the main effects of enhancing local contrast, especially on the sky, eliminate reflections on windows and the light scattering on water surfaces.

The following image was taken on a sunny day with the Sun relatively high on the sky, without any filter.

Notice how, even though the sky has some clouds, the contrast between the blue sky and the white clouds is quite low. Now, by only adding a polarizer filter, a dramatic improvement is achieved as shown in the next image (no post-processing has been applied to any of the photos).

Even though both pictures were taken within a few seconds of each other, the improvement in the sky is remarkable. There is also a change in the colors, like for instance the green of the grass and the trees, which seems to be a bit darker and more saturated on the second image. Also, since the polarizer is blocking part of the light spectrum, the second image is darker in general. To demonstrate the effect of the filter, I did not change the exposure time from one image to the other, but when using polarizer filters, it is often necessary to make small adjustments in the exposure time or aperture in order to compensate for the reduced light reaching the sensor.

The two images above were taken with the two extreme positions of the filter, but it is of course possible to apply a subtler effect by rotating the filter a smaller angle.

A great advantage of getting the right structure on the sky before post-processing is the reduced amount of noise that can be achieved. The next image shows a side-by-side comparison of the sky before (right) and after (left) applying the filter.

Even though the increase in contrast and structure was very pronounced, there is no noticeable increase in the noise. This is expected, since the way the sensor is capturing the incoming light did not change. If the image was captured without the filter and then post-processed to get a similar effect to that of applying the filter, the final result would contain a significant amount of noise, making the post-processing way more complicated.

The following image is a poorly post-processed version of the original capture without the filter, in an attempt to achieve similar contrast to the one obtained using the polarizer. Further processing steps can of course be taken to reduce the noise, but the point I want to make is precisely to show the effort that can be saved by simply using a filter.

So my final suggestion is, if you enjoy landscape photography and still don’t own a polarizer filter, go out and get one. Depending on what you want to achieve and your budget, you will find many options in the market but even having a cheap one will make an instant difference in your final images, so don’t hesitate too much and go for it. And as usual, if you have any questions, just write me an email!