black and white | alan frost photography

Posts from the ‘black and white’ category

Early morning walk by Chichester Harbour

Having really enjoyed the results of my visit to East Head last Friday, the next morning my wife and I walked our dog from Dell Quay to Birdham Pool along the footpath which adjoins Chichester Harbour.

When we arrived we immediately enjoyed the early morning light coupled with similar cloud formations to the previous day. The temptation was just too great – the little Olympus E-PL3 with its standard kit lens, had to come out of my jacket pocket and be fired up. A few quick shots later and the pick of the bunch is shown below. It works well in colour but the black and white conversion is my preferred choice.

By the time we had finished our walk and returned to the car, the clouds had lifted to be replaced by clear blue skies and the opportunity to photo the quiet stillness of the early morning had gone. “Win the morning and win the day” as my uncle used to say.

Chichester Harbour at Dell Quay
Olympus E-PL3 14-42mm kit lens @ 27mm f5.6 1/400 ISO200

As we neared the end of our walk I spotted a Red Admiral butterfly basking in the autumn sunshine on a oak leaf. Its not my usual style or indeed subject. Firstly its a nature shot and secondly its in colour and not black and white! Nevertheless it was a shot worth taking in my view and I have to say I am pleased with the quality of the image produced by the 14 – 42mm kit lens on the Olympus E-PL3.
Red Admiral butterfly

Gathering storm at East Head

Last Friday was the second time I didn’t need to go into the office. It’s still a strange feeling working a four day week, but a very pleasant one all the same! Having decided that I would try and devote some of my time every Friday to my photography, I thought that I should rekindle the Nikon D90 DSLR and perhaps visit the coast – attach a wide angle lens and see what I can produce.

Breakfast over, I packed everything I thought I might need in my camera bag and headed down to West Wittering, with the specific intention of exploring East Head. The sky was blue and completely void of clouds. A beautiful morning but as I drove to my destination I thought the weather was just too fine for the type of images I had envisaged taking. The weather forecast had indicated that by lunchtime clouds and maybe the odd the shower, would arrive from the west. I thought better of a morning shoot, turned the car round and headed home to do some gardening!

By lunchtime the weather forecast proved to be accurate; so back in the car and I headed south. As I parked up, the cloud formations were taking shape and I knew the decision I had made earlier to postpone my ‘shutter therapy’ (a phrase coined by Robin Wong – read his blog here) had been the right one.

By late afternoon the rain clouds appeared to the north and the wind moved them swiftly across the South Downs from west to east. In the meantime East Head itself was still bathed in glorious autumnal sun, which resulted in the three images below.

I returned home, downloaded the images using Lightroom and converted to monochrome in Silver Efex Pro 2.

Storm approaching.
Nikon D90 with 16-85mm @ 19mm f18 1/80 ISO200 hand held

Sand dunes and wind blown grasses
Nikon D90 10-24mm @10mm f10 1/160 ISO200 hand held

East Head – the gathering storm
Nikon D90 16-85mm @16mm f18 1/125 ISO200 hand held

Goodwood Revival Meeting – the last entry

Its a month since I enjoyed a wonderful weekend at the Goodwood Revival Meeting in September. This is the last entry following on from ‘The Silver Arrows’ and ‘The Characters’ and is a final selection of images. It features the motor cars themselves, the shops, some more characters and the aircraft which was on dsiplay. Its an eclectic mix, but all in black and white and hopefully they capture something of the atmosphere of the great event which never fails to impress through its marvellous attention to detail. Provisional dates for 2013 have recently been announced – 13th to 15th September. For more information visit the Goodwood website.

With the exception of the first image which was taken with a Nikon D90, all the other photographs were taken using the Olympus OMD – EM5.

The Race Starts
Nikon D90 – 70-300mm @122mm f8 1/100 ISO800

On the start finish straight

Olympus OMD EM5 45mm f16 1/80 ISO200

Racing round Molcombe

Olympus OMD EM5 45mm f4 1/1250 ISO200

The Shoe Shop

Olympus OMD EM5 45mm f1.8 1/4000 ISO200

The Hat Shop

Olympus OMD EM5 45mm f4 1/500 ISO200

Tesco – Remember Green Shield Stamps?

Olympus OMD EM5 20mm f6.3 1/320 ISO200

Eyes in the back of my coat

Olympus OMD EM5 45mm F2 1/2000 ISO200

Laurel and Hardy

Olympus OMD EM5 45mm f5.6 1/400 ISO200

Plane rivetts

Olympus OMD EM5 20mm f2.2 1/3200 ISO200

‘Miss Pick Up’ on the side of The Catalina Seaplane

Olympus OMD EM5 20mm f2.2 1/4000 ISO200

Miss Pick Up on the side of Catalina sea plane

Looking to the skies

Olympus OMD EM5 45mm f8 1/2000 ISO200

Gun Wharf Quay and Spinnaker Tower

Last Friday was a significant day for me. Earlier in the year I had agreed with my business partners that as from the 1st October I would reduce the numbers of days I work each week, from five to four days, electing to take Friday as my day off. The 5th October was therefore the first Friday I didn’t go into work, which left me free to do something completely different to what I would normally do on that day of the week. I decided to head on down to Portsmouth and Gun Wharf Quay in particular, to take a few shots of Spinnaker Tower and its immediate surroundings. It was good fun, I didn’t go inside any of the shops although I was questioned by a security officer who must have assumed I worked for a terrorist organisation! I can’t blame him for questioning me, he was only doing his job. In fact once we got talking he was quite interested and liked some of the shots I had taken.

Here are selection of the images, all taken with the Olympus EM5 and as is usually the case with my workflow, imported into Lightroom and converted into Black and White with Silver Efex Pro2.

Spinnaker Tower – an unusual but symmetrical approach to this very tall structure
12mm f10 1/500 ISO200

Spinnaker Tower looking across the harbour – a much more traditional approach
12mm f13 1/320 ISO200

A statue near the entrance to the Historic Dockyard with the tower in the background
45mm f3.5 1/4000 ISO200

A Ship’s Head again with the tower in the background
45mm f4 1/4000 ISO200

The rigging of the ‘Old Warrior’ ship – part of the Historic Dockyard
45mm f4.5 1/3200

A view across Portsmouth Harbour
45 f6.3 1/500 ISO200

The ‘Ship Leopard’ pub now closed down
45mm f4 1/1000 ISO200

The pedestrian walkway leading to Gun Wharf Quay and its shops
12mm f13 1/8 ISO200

A Busker in Gun Wharf, fiddling for a drink perhaps?
78mm f5 1/1000 ISO 200

An old dockyard crane in front of No. 1 Apartment Block
67mm f6.3 1/800 ISO200

Another unusual angle looking up at Spinnaker Tower
12mm f10 1/500 ISO200

HAPPY FRIDAYS!

‘People and Places’ – Littlehampton Seafront

This is the second post which relates to Jacqui Hurst’s ‘People and Places’ course I attended at West Dean College earlier this summer. In complete contrast to our visit to Glorious Goodwood we spent a day at Littlehampton; a typical and relatively small seaside resort on the south coast.

Whilst a colourful location I stuck to the brief I had imposed on myself at the begining of the course, i.e. choosing monochrome for all of my images. I tried to concentrate on textures, tones and good composition whilst trying to capture the ‘feeling and atmosphere’ of the seafront. Fortunately the weather was dry and bright so there were a fair number of people around. At times though it was overcast, but this helped from a photographic point of view as I did not have extremes of contrast to worry about.

Some of the group felt uncomfortable photographing people. I very enjoyed the experience and the Olympus EM5 certainly allowed me to be a little more discreet. Had I been using a substantial DSLR with a large zoom lens and I am sure I would have felt very different as I went looking for suitable subjects.

Once again the kit lens stayed in the bag and I switched between three primes lenses. 12mm, 20mm and 45mm which equate to 24mm, 40mm and 90mm if using a full frame 35mm sensor.

All the photographs were taken in RAW with an Olympus OMD EM5, imported into Lightroom and converted into black and white using Silver Efex Pro2. I have to say that Silver Efex Pro is a joy to use when converting images to monchrome. The contrast and structure adjustments can really bring the image to life, increasing tonal range and texture. I am still very much learning about black and white but for me there is a certain something about the results which pleases me.

Unusual bench seating along the promenade
Olympus EM5 12mm 1/160 f11 ISO 200