Photoblog 2.0

Monochrome Shore, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

I’ve been thinking a good bit lately about making black and white prints from certain of my digital images. Actually, since the final output would be using my digital printer, printing via offset, or display on a color monitor, what I’m really doing is to use the RGB (or CMYK) color notation to create a simulation of a black and white image. So this is an intentionally retro endeavor. Worth noting: quality vintage black and white prints were not actually “black” and white, but toned to create a rich (but monochromatic) look.

I took this photo from a position some way off the Chimney Rock Trail in Point Reyes, look west at the setting sun and the rugged shore of the end of the Point Reyes peninsula. My intention when I took the photo was to convert it to monochrome, because there were hardly any colors anyhow. The shoreline seemed backlit to me, and I figured, well you can get a glamour backlit black and white of a model, why not a landscape?

Taking the photo took a fraction of a second, but converting this image took much longer.

First I processed it from the RAW as I would a normal color image, using several different RAW “exposures” in combination. Next, I tweaked each color channel used Color Channel adjustment layers with monochromatic check. I weaked the whole confection a bit, then added a few adjustments in LAB color and a tritone version of the original on top of my (by now massive) layer stack. Not to oversimplify, I used a variety of blending modes, masks, and adjustment layers.

If there is a moral to this, it’s that the key word is “simulate.” To get the “black & white” results I wanted, I needed to alter the color structure of the image, creating an entirely new look in the process. Well, honestly, that’s what I normally do with my photos much of the time.

Related story: Nautilus in Black and White.

[Nikon D300, 18-200mm VR zoom lens at 55mm (77.5mm in 35mm terms), 1/160 of a second at f/32 and ISO 100, hand held, image stabilization engaged.]

Nautilus in Black and White, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.

Finley Eversole contacted me for permission to use one of my chambered nautilus images in his book Art, Death and Transformation, to be published by Inner Traditions in 2009. Based on my conversation with Finley, he’s a man with personal experience of the abstract expressionists. I gather that his book is about the relationalship of the spiritual to art, particularly in the context of mid-twentieth century art. There’s an extensive discussion of Robert Smithson’s famous Spiral Jetty, constructed in 1970 and located in the Great Salt Lake, Utah.

In the context of Spiral Jetty, Finley wanted to illustrate spirals in nature, hence my chambered nautilus image. The catch was that he could only reproduce my image in black and white. Here’s the original image in color (you may notice that the black and white version is rotated).

I undertook the conversion to black and white myself because I was afraid that anything like a straight RGB to Grayscale switch would result in a murky image that lacked contrast. Converting RGB to Grayscale simply throws away the color information in the image, much as will happen when you discard the AB channels in LAB mode. Getting a little more sophisticated than this, I converted using a black and white adjustment layer. On the default settings, the results were predicably flat. Using the so-called Ansel Adams settings (explained here) and a channel mixer adjustment layer, I got slightly better results. By the way, my new book Light & Exposure for Digital Photographers from O’Reilly includes a case study that visually shows the impact of various black and white conversion techniques.

So I realized I needed to do a great deal of preparation, and essentially change the contrast structure of the image, before discarding the color information. I put the image through a variety of steps, but the most effective was the selective deployment in tritone mode (also explained in Light & Exposure and see Toned), using black, white, and Pantone metallic silver as the three colors.

By the way, I am planning to make prints of both the black & white and color versions of this image, so please let me know if you have an interest in owning a print.

I’ll leave the last words to Finley Eversole:

The spiral represents the unfolding of our hidden creative powers and symbolizes both self-realization and boundless expansion. Its secret is beautifully dramatized by the chambered nautilus whose in-dwelling life unfolds cyclically and periodically, mirroring in itself the expanding spirals and eternal patterns of the evolving cosmos.

Related stories: Nautilus 69, Spirals, Resistance to Spirals is Futile.