B&W February

Azaleas in Bloom, copyright 2015, Stephanie Maatta Smith

My online photography group participated in a photography book club during the month of February. We read Andrew S. Gibson's The Magic of Black & White Part 1 - Vision, and practiced making black and white photographs exclusively for the month, using his techniques and recommendations. The goal was to learn to "see" in monochrome, and to evaluate the effectiveness of color versus monochrome for impact. The take-away for me was learning how light changed an image when seeing it in color and then translating it to monochrome. This exercise also provided more opportunities to discover my camera's features and settings I normally don't use.

Black & White Collage, copyright 2015, Stephanie Maatta Smith

Stripping away color brought out the subtle details which might otherwise be missed, such as the glowing center of the tulips and the delicate lacing of the spider web. I also found, for me, simple composition is more effective than complex images.

Worldwide Photowalk 2014

On Saturday, October 11th, photographers participated in a worldwide photowalk, sponsored by KelbyOne. There were 1052 walks around the world with 20,177 participants. This was the 7th annual photowalk. I had the opportunity to join an historical walking tour one in my family's hometown in Calumet, MI, as part of WWPD. While my photowalk group was small (just me and one other photographer), it was fun to see a familiar place through the eyes of someone else. The morning walk had beautiful light with enough clouds to make the sky interesting. I'll definitely do this again next year.

These are a few of my favorite images from the morning's event.

Behind Door Number... copyright 2014, Stephanie Maatta Smith

Steeple in the Distance, copyright 2014, Stephanie Maatta Smith

Neglected, copyright 2014, Stephanie Maatta Smith

Steeples and Spires, copyright 2014, Stephanie Maatta Smith

Steeple in Silhouette, copyright 2014, Stephanie Maatta Smith

Black & White

Lonely
copyright 2014, Stephanie Maatta Smith

Black and white photography isn't a strong favorite of mine. But I'll admit that it works very well to add atmosphere and emotion to some types of images. Season plays a role in these images also -- winter lighting and snow affects how the images appear, washing out some of the color in the original version, and enhancing some of the shades of black and gray.

Through the Window
copyright 2014, Stephanie Maatta Smith

With a little time to experiment, I pulled up my photo editing software and found a few images which converted nicely into a B&W version. In order to make the conversions work, some of the highlights and shadows required adjusting.

I'll confess that the final image, "Academy in Black and White" was made with my mobile phone's camera. The zoom feature worked really well to capture the image, and it was of fine enough quality to be able to convert to monochrome and not lose the lines and definition.

Academy in Black and White
copyright 2014, Stephanie Maatta Smith

It may be time to read a book or two on black and white digital photography to learn how to add more drama to these types of images. Probably need to spend more time on exposure and lighting as well. Sounds like another photography workshop is in my future.