alan frost photography

Barn on a Hill – Colour or Mono?

Sometimes, just sometimes, I take a photograph which I think works well in black and white as well as in colour. It doesn’t happen very often as the vast majority of the time I look to take an image which I can convert into monochrome, but inevitably there are going to be occassions when stripping the colour away is almost sacrilege given the subject matter of the image.

When down in Dorset the other week I took one such photograph which I have called ‘Barn on a hill’. My default is always to convert to mono and the finished result is shown below.

‘Barn on a hill’ in mono.

Restoring all the colour and processing the image in an alternative way gives me a completely different picture.

‘Barn on a hill’ in colour

Personally I think both have their merits. In fact I decided to upload the mono version to 500px. Up until now I have always used Flickr for my online presence, so this was the first of my photographs to appear on 500px. Within the space of an hour or two it rose from ‘Fresh’ to ‘Upcoming’ before being graded as ‘Popular’, which I assume is similar to ‘Explore’ on Flickr. It’s pulse (a measure of how popular an image is on 500px) rose to 97.9 out of 100 and to date has 132 ‘likes’ and 60 ‘favs’. I quite like the way 500px measures the activity and popularity of a photograph; it’s certainly a different approach to how Flickr operates.

Anyway enough of stats and back to photography and I ask myself one simple question. Should I process and keep more colour images and not always be looking at the world in black and white? In this case the appeal of colour is too great to ignore, but of the two I still prefer the mono version, so I guess that’s the answer to my question!

Cow portraits – taken near South Stoke

Cows in Reflection

A week or so ago I returned to the hamlet of South Stoke to take a shot of The River Arun. Whilst setting up my camera I noticed in a nearby field a herd of cows in the distance. I thought nothing of it until a couple and their dog came close to where I was sitting. The dog had disturbed the cattle and they were now running across the field and getting ever closer to me. Fortunately a wide ditch prevented them from coming too close and devouring my equipment!

Having taken a few shots of the river, I decided to turn my attention to the cows which seemed more than interested in what I was doing as I pointed my lens towards them. The shots which follow were all processed in Lightroom and Silver Efex Pro2. They all share one thing in common. I am now using a custom preset in Silver Efex which adds a ‘coffee tone’ and mimics a black and white film type – Fuji Neopan Acros 100. I have never used this film in a film camera so cannot say how well or otherwise replicate the look in a digital file but I find the combination of the tone and film type works well. It adds a little warmth, some grain and contrast to the overall appearance. That’s not to say that there isn’t further processing carried out before the photograph is deemed to be finished.

Here are selection of the shots I took. The first and last images in this series were taken of the cows reflections in the water ditch. They are quite mysterious in their look and mood. I hope you like them.

Portrait of a cow

Heads Up

Cattle

Head of a cow

Reflections of cows

A week on and it’s back to South Stoke

Towards South Stoke

There is nothing quite like revisiting a location to get to know it better. To explore an area, follow different paths, observe how the view can change from one position to another and of course if you are taking landscape images then on two days the weather and lighting are never going to be the same. It is impossible to take the same shot twice.

And so having spent an enjoyable time on a very dull overcast day by The River Arun at South Stoke the weekend before last, I decided to return a week later. This time the weather was more favourable, still generally overcast but with more dramatic cloud formations. I chose to walk down the west side of the river. Before leaving home I had already checked out a map of the area and noticed that there was a bend in the river and this might be a good position to take a shot looking up the river towards South Stoke. I encountered quite a few cattle on the way but within ten minutes I arrived at my chosen position. I was not disappointed. Tripod, camera and filters set up I took the photo which heads this post.

Totally different to the images from the previous week, yet all taken in the same area.

By way of a reminder here is another image taken two weeks ago, this time looking down river from South Stoke and taken from the bank on the east side the Arun.

The River Arun

Using ‘Blur’ down by the River Arun

Riverside

Last weekend I gave myself some time to take a few shots with the specific intention of using my Lee Sev5n filter system. Yes, that is how it is spelt. It’s the smaller version of its big brother and works in just the same way but its size is better suited to mirrorless cameras such as the system I use.

I decided to head back to a location I had been to in the Autumn of last year – The River Arun near the tiny hamlet of South Stoke, which is at the end of a no through road to the north of the town of Arundel.

Taking any long exposure shots has to be done with a tripod so the time taken to set up and compose the shot takes a lot longer than a more straightforward hand held exposure, but it does make you stop and think about what you are doing.

When I returned to my car and made the journey back home I was convinced that the hour or so I spent taking a handful of images had not been worthwhile. Nevertheless when I downloaded the files and started to work on them in post processing, a couple of the images started to come together. The long exposure of about 8 seconds which I used for the shot at the top of this entry, had blurred the water and the effect of the light wind movement in the reeds and the branches of the trees was captured. However there was still some detail in the foreground.

As well as taking long exposure shots to create a sense of mood, I though I would also experiment by selectively using one of the ‘blur’ filters in Photoshop and masking certain areas of the image which would have the effect of de-focusing some elements of the photograph. I have used this technique in the photo below, effectively blurring the left hand side of the image whilst keeping the right hand side relatively sharp. I have applied a vignette as well as a ‘coffee tone’ in Silver Efex Pro2 to produce the image below. This was a 10 second exposure.

River Bend

Long exposures and using either a restricted depth of field or alternatively applying a ‘blur’ to an image in post processing, are techniques I would like to explore further. Used well, I think the combination can produce an ethereal look to an image which I rather like.

Pinterest…..an invaluable site for inspiration

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A little late to the party I admit, but I have now joined the millions of users of the ‘bookmarking site’ Pinterest….and what a valuable site it is. For those of you who have yet to discover the strengths of Pinterest, you start by opening an account and from there you can select images from the web and ‘Pin it’ to your page or a board you have created about a particular photographer, artist or subject. You can add a description to the ‘pin’ so as well as seeing the thumbnail of the image you have some information to refer to which relates to the image. Click on any of these thumbnails and it will take you to the site where you discovered the link in the first place. Your account, or a board itself, can be followed by other users and conversely if you discover an account or board which is of interest to you then you can also ‘follow’ and will receive email notifications when new ‘pins’ are added to that account or board.

Like all things that work well, Pinterest is incredibly simple, but very powerful and I have already made up a number of boards for photographers and artists I admire, including Michael Kenna, Norman Ackroyd, Chris Friel, Henri Cartier Bresson, Elliot Erwitt, Chris Tancock and so the list goes on. I shall be adding the wildlife photographer Nick Brandt and Ansel Adams in the coming days. In a short space of time I will have a single reference point on the web for all the photographs and works of art that inspire me. Given time I will also be adding boards for my own photographs as well.

If like me you want to build what in effect is a library of favourite or inspiring images then rather than bookmark the page, which just gets lost with the multitude of bookmarks already created, simply ‘Pin it’. As I said at the outset a highly useful site and one which I will refer to on a regular basis.

If you want to sign up and create a Pinterest account then click here.

My own Pinterest account is alanrfrost and can be found here.

I will also add the ‘PinIt’ button to my own photography website, as there might be one or two people out there who would like to ‘pin’ one of my images to their account. Much to my surprise I discovered by chance that one or two already have!

Happy Pinning!!