07-14-10 – Black, White, & Grey All Over

Forums Forums Farktography General Chat This week’s contest 07-14-10 – Black, White, & Grey All Over

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 153 total)
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  • #1873
    Elsinore
    Keymaster

    Color pictures that could be mistaken for black and white. Difficulty: No desaturation allowed in post-processing.

    Theme suggestion courtesy of Kestrana–thanks!

    #29710
    LeicaLens
    Participant

    Just want some clarification on how much (if any) colour is allowed. A splash of colour somewhere is okay, right?
    I was actually out the shooting on a very grey day, and took a aeroplane picture that would have fitted this theme perfectly. Unfortunately, I had B&W film in the camera…

    #29711
    olavf
    Participant

    My interpretation is that the shot should be almost completely desaturated by the nature of the subject & background. So, anything with ‘vibrant’ colors somewhere in it should be out.

    That said, is something that feels ‘sepia’ okay? Or is that stretching it too much? I’ll see if I can come up with an example if need be.

    #29712
    ravnostic
    Participant

    I have a ‘sepiated’ picture also that I was wondering about…and also a very old picture where the colors have almost completely faded. But as I read it, “that could be mistaken for B&W”, yet also (in the original thread), Kestrana is quoted, “the vast majority of your picture should be black, white or grey.”

    So I’m thinking sepia is out, but something like this (not that I’d use it, but to convey my understanding) would be in? Kestrana, pleasest clarify? Picture of my truck after an accident; was taking it apart and photographing in stages so I remembert how to puts it back togedder.

    It’s MOSTLY B&W, and if the dipstick was pink instead of yellow, could be mistaken for a scene in Schindler’s List…

    #29713
    Kestrana
    Participant

    Actually ravnostic the entirety of the picture has a little more color than what I was going for, with the brownish dust, red plug, yellow dipstick and corners. If you cropped to 75% of the picture using the upper left corner, that would work.

    Sepia or purposely desaturating a photo during post-processing is not really it either (altho a little desaturation is fine; just don’t take a picture of a scarlet macaw and desaturate it 99%. The subject was obviously not black/white/grey.)

    Let me post a couple examples; give me a few minutes to archive hunt.

    #29714
    Kestrana
    Participant

    Basically just think of this as a stricter color contest where you are limited to black, white & grey in a color picture. These two would be acceptable:

    Whereas this one is really over the line:

    #29715
    olavf
    Participant

    I looked back and the picture I was thinking of was color-corrected for the shade. As shot in camera, I think fits what you were going for.

    Thanks for the clarification though, either way, I think it needed to be said 😉

    #29716
    Elsinore
    Keymaster

    Hmm I do think the stone carving is too yellow/brown for the theme, but I’m not sure where to draw the line. There will be differences in how monitors display colors, so there will have to be a bit of leeway.

    #29717
    ravnostic
    Participant

    I’m fortunate in that I have several to choose from in the archives (maybe not weeners, but good candidates). Still, it’s too bad I won’t be able to use this. Scanned picture of me when I was about 2.

    The colors nearly faded away (I recovered some through puter manipulation, though, in another version.) Maybe I’ll use it for vote whoring or something.

    #29718
    ravnostic
    Participant

    Reviewing, I’m thinking there’s going to be a lot of variation in not-really-but-looks-that-way black and whites. I have shots that individually look B&W, but compared to others, have plenty of color. In the contest, I imagine juxtiposed against each other, very little will look black and white when compared with shots above and below (unless someone really cheats on the saturations). I have two quality shots I like of birds, for example, both look B&W, but next to each other, one looks quite blue and the other quite brownish. I think we’re goinging to wind up with a lot of variation from pic to pic, but the overall vibe will be ‘monochrome’. Given different moniters and such, not sure how else it could be, anyway.

    It will be an interesting contest. Of course, I do have my moon shot (a shear gimme in the b/w dept), but I haven’t decided which I’ll post as one of the three (and I haven’t decided on the ‘other’ astroshot I’m considering, either, or whether to save it for another venue.)

    #29719
    Kestrana
    Participant

    I agree Elsinore. Maybe it’s easier to be stricter? I’ll edit my post.

    #29720
    Elsinore
    Keymaster

    ravnostic: For the shot of you at 2, that looks more colorful (albeit faded) than I would have imagined would fit this theme. Also, since someone else took it, of course it’s not eligible for Farktography 😉

    And yeah, Kestrana: It may be easier to be stricter. At least to a certain extent. I actually probably wouldn’t have thought the monument with lens flare would work since the lens flare is so obviously a splash of color, but I see where you’re going with that, and the overall picture is mostly black/white/gray.

    #29721
    orionid
    Participant

    Now I’m doubting one of my planned entries.

    Is the moss-covered rock in the top-left corner too much green?

    #29722
    Elsinore
    Keymaster

    That looks pretty much what I had in mind, but then I’m not Kestrana!

    #29723
    Elsinore
    Keymaster

    I guess in my mind, when I read the theme, I was thinking photos that at first glance, I would think they were b/w. If you hadn’t told me about the moss-covered rock, I wouldn’t have noticed it was green on first glance, though I eventually would have clued in that it was green.

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