there is, it can be safely said, nothing about it that would set the world alight. This is exactly as it came out of the camera, and in no way reflects what I saw at the time of shooting, some great harsh directional winter light highlighting these, very early, Buddleia shoots.
With a little post-processing however all is not lost (especially as I ALWAYS shoot in the RAW format) and some of that light can be retrieved:-

OK, so I have chosen quite a boring subject, this is still quite a nothing image. However this is quite deliberate, because I want to make a particular point here. This is still not what I saw in my mind when I shot this image, as I have, over the years, taught myself to look at subject as potential black and white images, and I saw a high contrast B&W image in this subject
So, the next step is to convert to B&W:-

Interestingly a simple B&W conversion seems to be a step backwards, and the lovely contrast of the post-processed image has been lost taking it back to, more or less, the same sad state of straight out of the camera.
But, this is where the artistic side comes into play. I reverted to the post processed image and added an adjustment layer with a deep yellow filter before adding a second adjustment layer for a high contrast red filter B&W conversion followed by yet another adjustment layer to up the contrast and reduce the brightness to create a high contrast but low key image:-

which is what I saw in my mind’s eye when shooting this subject.
I know that this is not a great art photograph, but I think that most would agree that a pretty mundane, nothing image ahs been transformed into something that has substantially more aesthetic appeal than the original.

Transforming a quite ordinary image straight from the camera is quite easy to do with just a few easy adjustments and the application of a neutral density gradient to the image; the whole process taking no more than a few minutes. The image I started out with is of one of my favourite spots in Edinburgh, Newhaven:-

As you can see this is a pretty ordinary, and not terribly inspiring shot. I know that some will say it is also badly composed, but this is the effect that I wanted to achieve. Normally there would not be a lot that could be done with this image, but, as I always shoot in RAW there is quite a lot that can be done as all of the information that the camera saw is still in the file, nothing has been discarded, as it would have been had I shot in JPG. Step 1 is to fire up Photoshop and open the image up (which opens automatically in Camera Raw) :-

Nothing too fancy was done here, I simply altered some of the Basic settings to retrieve some of what had been lost. The settings I used were:-

Exposure -0.30
Recovery 40
Fill Light 10
Blacks 10
Brightness +50
Contrast +45
Clarity +50
Vibrance +30
Saturation +15

which produced a slightly more acceptable image:-

However it still lacks that sparkle that I remembered seeing on the day. The next thing I did was to apply some noise reduction, I can’t provide setting for this step as I use Noiseware Standard, and some sharpening, using one of several actions I have for this purpose to make life a little simpler. This produced a much more acceptable image:-

This is now at the point where I am beginning to think that it is a good shot. However, it is still just a little too bright for my taste, those clouds should stand out from the sky much more, and those reflections are still quite bland. The next thing that I decided would have made a difference was that I should have shot this with a graduated neutral density filter, which started me thinking that it might just be possible to do the same thing with Photoshop, a quick look at my PS bible proved that it is indeed possible, here’s how.
First I decided to sort out the sky, so I created a new layer (Layer > New > Layer), then I selected the Gradient tool from the toolbar:-

Make sure that black is selected, then from the drop down menu at the top choose the option that allows the gradient to go from black to transparent, and that the linear gradient button is selected – this is normally the default option. Then, holding down the shift key, I drew from the top of the image to about halfway down the image, producing something like this:-

We will counter that real darkness at the top shortly, but first I went to Edit > Free Transform and pushed the bottom edge of the gradient up the image a little so that only the very top of the sky was being affected. Next I set the Layer Mode to Overlay and reduced the opacity of the layer, in this case to 50%, so that the effect is not so obvious, producing something like this:-

As can be seen this has made a marked difference to the sky, those clouds are really standing out now. But those reflections could use a little more punch in them as they are still a little bland. So, what I did here was pretty much the reverse of what I did for the sky, created a new layer, Layer > New > Layer, selected the Gradient tool (with the same settings as before, and holding the shift key down drew from the bottom of the image to about halfway up, producing something like this:-

Again I went to Edit > Free Transform, only this time I pulled the top edge of the gradient down towards the bottom a little, then set the Layer Mode to Overlay and reduced the Opacity again to 50% to produce the finished image as can be seen below.

Although this is the same image, I think most would agree that the end result bears no resemblance to the original; a bland, flat, nothing image has been transformed, with a few simple techniques, into something that can be used without any qualms at all. This now shows Newhaven Harbour much closer to how I remember it when shooting this image, maybe the composition could be improved a little with some judicious cropping from the bottom, but at the end of the day I am more than happy with the end result.

Now, I am no Photoshop expert, but I know how to do what I need to do, and am also a great one to experiment. It was not long that I discovered that my night shots, with all of their movement and busyness were ideal subjects for negative imagery. Having tried a few experiments with contrast, vibrance and saturation etc. it became obvious that such images could indeed become stand alone works of photographic art. Here are five of the previous post’s images that I have tinkered with.

Now the above images are only quickly executed conversions, an experiment, if you will, to see if there would be any potential here. Having now played around with these images and proving that there is some interest there I can see the potential for spending much more time with them and pushing them much further into the realms of art.

The thing which amazed me most was the amount of colour I managed to capture, but most of all I think that the amount of light and movement in these images makes for some very interesting photos.

This image sort of reminded me of an image of my own, a photo of Loch na Keal with a similar mix of land, water and a cloudy sky:-

All in all quite a mundane image, not a photo that would win any prizes, poor composition sees to that. Yet, on looking more closely, and asking myself what I thought was wrong with it, I began to see some potential there. My first thought was that there was too much foreground, then there is the lack of real contrast, and a substantial lack of the atmosphere that I remember there being on that morning back in June when I took it.

So, I am unanimous in my decision that it could do with a little work, and that maybe the inspiration of Ansel Adams may just bear fruit. Now, to have done this job properly I should have gone into Photoshop proper, but as I don’t have the complete PS on my laptop, and was too lazy to fire up the PC, I made do with PS Elements. However this did, more or less, what I wanted:-

Now I didn’t spend a great deal of time (about 25 mins) with this image, as I simply wanted to see if my idea was right, and I think that it does work well, and that it will bear taking the time to work on a proper conversion of this photo. But, a little judicious cropping and playing around with the brightness and contrast seems to have created something that, if not a swan, is no longer an ugly duckling.

Update:

OK, so I fired up Photoshop and spent a little more time with the original colour image. The final version above showed that idea could work, but it still lacked that sort of timeless feel that I had in mind when I started out; it just looks too, well, black and white, too obviously manipulated, too cold and quite honestly too dark. So I played around with the temperaure and tint settings, just tweaking them a little until I got the sort of warmer feeling that I could see in my mind, making it look more like the results from black and white film stocks I remember using when embarking on taking photographs many many years ago, at the age of about nine or ten. From there it was just a matter of adjusting the brightness and contrast to bring out those reflections in the water and, apart from a little burning back of the highlights in the sky, I was done. The final result:-

Finally an image that I am quite happy with, it may not be to everyone’s taste but I like it. It only goes to prove that we can all learn from past masters of the photographic art.

One of these containers particularly looked as if it had been painted with odds and ends of paint left over from other jobs. It also looked as if it had not been attended to for quite some time as the paint was cracked and peeling, and the rust was beginning to be quite evident. All of this made for some very interesting colours and textures, and I could not resist taking some quite abstract shots of it; I present them below for your perusal:-

One end of the subject container...

Closeup 1

Closeup 2

Closeup 3

Closeup 4

Closeup 5

Closeup 6

Closeup 7

I, personally, think that there are some fantastic colours and textures in these images, I am sure that not everyone will agree with me, such judgements are extremely subjective. However, I think that it just goes to prove that what most people would probably write off as being something of an eyesore can, at the end of the day, have some quite beautiful aspects, and also a high degree of aesthetic merit.

After driving around Harris, tryng to avoid the almost constant rain, we finally came upon a loch in the hills above Finsbay, on the Old Peat Road, which had quite a profusion of waterlillies, and also a spot where we could park without causing any problems; quite a rare occurrence on single track roads. I know not how many Black and White shots I took of these flowers, but in the end it came down to a choice of three, all for different reasons. The first I chose because I liked the way in which the water was playing with the light:-

Waterlilly 1

But in the end I rejected it as the perfect waterlily photo a) because the subject was too distant, and b) because, while it is a good photo, it is just a little too cluttered for my taste.

So time to get a little closer to the subject with photo number two, which was chosen for the contrast and the movement within the image:-

Waterlilly 2

Much better, and still a very good image, but yet again no banana as for me the composition leaves quite a bit to be desired, with the subject being far to central in the image.

OK, so I am left with one, having rejected two. Photo three brings us even closer to the subject, and was chosen for, more or less, the same reasons as photo two; I love the contrast, the movement, the light on the water and the depth of field.

Waterlily 3

This is an image that I am more than happy with, but I think that I do not yet have the perfect waterlily photo. There are several things wrong with this image which make it not perfect; for instance that blade of grass coming in from the side, just above the subject does rather detract the eye from the subject. So, whilst I end up with a pretty damned good image, the final report reads “could do better”. Who knows, maybe I am destined never to capture the perfect waterlilly photo…

Sometimes one sees an image in the minds eye as one that will look good in B&W, something that has that sort of arty, or timeless appeal. Such was the case when we were camping on Harris recently, we were at a campsite that has a sort of campers den, an old blackhouse attached. Now there were a couple of windows, the sills of which were littered with odds and ends, which really appealed to the artist in my head. Both subjects were screaming out for Black and White treatment, so I set the camera to monochrome and a high ISO, as it was a low light situation, and shot off a few images, most of which I was very pleased with.

So, I have now had a couple of weeks to look at and assess these images, and it occurred to me to take the best of the window shots and see what they looked like in colour. So, I opened them up in PS Camera RAW, and was quite astounded at just how awful they looked in comparison to the B&W originals; here are the comparisons:-

Colour 1

For me this photo has absolutely no aesthetic merit whatsoever, and in the normal run of things would be trashed PDQ.

B&W 1

The difference here is quite astounding, the B&W version of this subject has so much more aesthetic appeal than the colour version, much more arty, and a timless quality that the colour version just cannot convey. The same applies for all of the photos I have chosen for this post, so I will just include the others with no comments at all.

Colour 2

B&W 2

Colour 3

B&W 3

Colour 4

B&W 4

I know there are those who will probably disagree with me, after all such comparisons can never be anything other than subjective judgements. But for me the subjects here just do not work as colour images, but do work exceedingly well as Black and White ones. There are some occasions when Black and White is superior, and when colour just doesn’t cut it at all.

One of the areas I have been expolring over recent days is the ability that the new camera gives me to get up close and personal with the subject. Now I know that I have a steep learning curve ahead of me, and that I will make a lot of mistakes, but here are some of the initial results:-

As I said, I will make mistakes, and there are a couple there just to prove that I am not infallible, the blue viola and the apple blossom buds are cases in point; the viola being quite out of focus, and the apple blossom buds not having the depth of field that one would have liked. But, even so, there is detail there that one would miss with the naked eye, as our eyes are not constructed to see such minute detail. As I say there is a lot to learn, but the early results seem to suggest that I am heading in the right direction.