Making a Black-and-White Photograph “Sing”

I’ve received a few questions about what “tricks” I’m using for my black-and-white images. Well, I’d say that I don’t use any tricks, just the tools of the trade. Let me show you…

Here is a typical image straight out of the camera. It’s quite good already — it shows an interesting face with a very intense gaze, it’s sharp and well exposed.

But naturally there is room for improvement. In Camera Raw I cropped to a 3:4 ratio, increased the exposure some, darkened slightly and increased the contrast a good bit.

Now the face is much more dominant, and the eyes, mustache and beard are more vibrant. I could leave the image in color, but it begs to be converted to black and white. But before doing that, I inspected the whole area at 200% magnification and removed any dust, skin blemishes, etc. That small triangle of background in the upper-left corner bothered me too, so I filled it with pixels from the turban.

The next step was to look at the three individual channels. I liked the green one much more than red or blue one, so after experimenting some, I settled on -20, +170, -50.

There — the clash of the skin and turban colors is gone, but the image lacks contrast. I added a contrast layer and it did wonders to the face, but made the turban too bright. I counteracted that by adding a mask and limiting the contrast increase to the face only.

Now the eyes, forehead and especially the right quarter of the face became too dark, so I added a lightening layer and a mask that revealed the effect only in the desired areas.

The right eye is still too dark, which I corrected with a lightening layer.

The most noticeable problems have been addressed now, but the turban, the mustache and the background in the lower-right corner are still too bright. I counteracted that with a darkening layer.

Now, that’s already very good! In fact, this is the first version that I printed and showed around. I even glued it on my wall and stared at it for a few days. After getting over my initial excitement, I started noticing further possibilities for improvement.

First I darkened the brightest areas of the turban, shirt and collar as they were drawing attention away from the face.

Then I darkened the edges and corners of the image a good bit.

The light area of the background on the left-hand side and by the much brighter background on the right-hand side bothered me immediately, so made them very dark, almost without any detail.

And that’s where I am right now. Admittedly the last three changes were quite subtle, but in my mind, they are the ones that make the image really “sing.”

I’ve been staring at the version above for a while now and I can’t think of any further improvements. I’ll look at it again tomorrow, and if then too I don’t see anything that bothers me, I’ll make a second print.

That print might reveal further problems and lead to even more adjustment layers, but for now I’m satisfied.

By the way, here is what my layer stack looks like right now:

UPDATE: It is now one day later. This morning I didn’t see any problems on screen, so I made a 10×15 cm print on cheap glossy paper. When it came out, I immediately saw three areas that just had to be improved. I lightened the white collar on the right-hand side, then lightened the whole image a tiny bit. Finally I spotted the very dark area in the middle of the chin, which, although perfectly natural, was too obvious and distracting.

I’m making another small print right now, and if that one holds for a day, it will be time for an A4-size print on pearl paper.

World Press Photo of the Year 2008

World Press Photo is a non-profit foundation that organizes (in their own words) the world’s largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest. Each year the winning photographs are presented to the public in a traveling exhibition as well as being printed in a yearbook.

Luckily the exhibit was also shown in Hamburg and yesterday I went to see it. I didn’t expect much art or many “pretty pictures” in a journalistic competition, but I still came out with very mixed feelings. While there were some great images there and some that stop you in your tracks and make you think, I would still rate many of the others as bad or boring. Yes, the photographers put themselves in grave danger to get many of these photos. And yes, some images illustrate important and very sad events of 2008. But does a mediocre photograph of an important event deserve to become the winner in a news category?

Oh well, I guess I don’t really get the genre, but I still think it was a good idea to see the exhibit. I think you grow as a photographer also by looking at and pondering images that do not necessarily turn you on…

The Candid Frame Blog and Podcast

I have an iPod which I use quite often, but instead of listening to music, I usually listen to podcasts. There are so many great ones out there dedicated to any topic you can think of. And naturally there are also many that are related to photography.

The one that I’d like to bring your attention to today is The Candid Frame. Once or twice a month Ibarionex Perello talks with a professional photographer for about half an hour and we get a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes of how commercial photography works. Sometimes the photographers talk about their creative process (Craig Tanner comes to mind here), and sometimes they talk about the “mechanics” of getting clients, archiving photographs or producing a portfolio.

Naturally not all photographers are born as public speakers, so some podcast guests are more interesting than others. And if you don’t like the work of someone, you probably won’t like their interview either. But in general I find The Candid Frame very entertaining/interesting/stimulating. And to boot, about twice a month it introduces you to not one, but two new photographers. That’s because at the end of each episode, the interviewee has to recommend another artist whose work they look up to.

I actually discovered the podcast not all that long ago, so I haven’t heard that many episodes yet. I started listening the oldest ones first, and a few days ago I got to number 37, Emilio Banuelos. I found his interview especially inspiring.

New Web Portfolio: Black-and-White Portraits

I must be in the mood for making portfolios, because I’ve finished another one containing eight black and white portraits. They all happen to be of people who I photographed in India, and that’s probably because people in “more developed countries” do not age so interestingly.

New Web-Portfolio: India 2008

It’s been almost seven weeks since I came back from India, and I’ve finally finished my India 2008 portfolio. I haven’t been lazy or anything — it was just too much work. You might remember that I hate image-clutter, so I try to find the real keepers and I delete everything else. During the two weeks in India I shot 2900 images and already at night at the hotel I was able to reduce them to 1200. When I got home, I kept wading through the images — deleting, rating, deleting, adding metadata, deleting some more, editing casually then deleting again. I am now down to 486 images, and my aim is to get below 300. But before I spend another 7 weeks on that, I thought it’s time to make a portfolio.

Click on the thumbnail below to see the 16 images that I consider best. I hope you enjoy the images, and of course I’ll be very happy to read any comments you might have!

PS: I shot so intensively while in India that I haven’t wanted to take a single photograph since. But my hands are slowly itching again, so maybe I’ll go out and photograph some canola fields today. In fact I have to, since they are in full bloom right now and next weekend will probably be too late!