Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“Color is descriptive. Black and white is interpretive.” – Elliott Erwitt
When I’m in a rut, I shoot monochrome images to help me get out of it. What I like to do to get out of a rut is shoot some photographs in direct monochrome mode. It doesn’t have to be all of the images that I shoot during a self-assignment or even if I’m just going to Cars & Coffee; It’s just a few to, you know, see what happens.
How I made this shot: I photographed this vintage Ford pickup truck at the annual Chenango Car Show. The camera used was my beloved Olympus Pen F. Lens was the Olympus M.14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 II R at 14mm with an exposure of 1/320 sec at f/8 and ISO 320. Image was captured as RAW+JPEG and the color RAW file was converted to monochrome using Exposure Software’s Exposure Pinhole lens preset.
If you think that shooting in direct a bad idea because you worry about what might happen if you change your mind at some later date and want that original to be in color? You can capture a monochrome (JPEG) and color (RAW) file at the same time by placing your camera in monochrome mode and RAW+JPEG capture. Some dual-slot DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, even let you simultaneously save each file type to a different card.
If you prefer to capture in color and convert to monochrome later in the digital darkroom that’s another option. The biggest differences is than some plug-ins work better with a color (RAW or JPEG) file than a monochrome file because there are more tones available to start with. That’s when I’ll typically selecti the RAW file, enhance it while it’s color and then convert to monochrome using Silver Efex or Exposure.
Tip: Another great idea to prevent your photography from becoming stagnant is to make a new photograph each day. It’s actually harder to do that it sounds but give it a try, even if you miss a day or two along the way
My book Creative Digital Monochrome Effects is available new from Amazon for $5.95 and used for the bargain price around four bucks, cheaper than your next coffee at a Starbucks drive-through. There’s even a chapter on infrared photography, if you want to give that genre a try. There’s no Kindle version at the time, sorry.