Different ways of seeing

I was having a quick chat over on Michael Klein's blog earlier today. He's been shooting his pots in black and white, in camera. Lots of fun in that direction for sure! Sometimes I think clay lends itself to B&W. When I worked for Mike Cohen he used to shoot B&W at least 1x a year when he was getting his poster ready for his Holiday Studio Sale. It was almost as though he saw B&W during the time he prepared for his shoot. Somethings just dont photograph well as B&W...and others look timeless. This stimulated me to play with how I see color vs B&W.




This is the original image. Straight from the camera. Still not what I was hoping for.


This the first incarnation, in Nik SilverEfex Pro. Not too terribly interesting. But it has shades of what is to become.


So I worked on it for a while in Nik SilverEfex Pro, adjusting contrast, texture, depth .... and then toned the image a little.




Not quite there, but by ramping up the saturation on the lower layer (original image) then adding the black and white image over it, with about 50% opacity, I can see through the darker layer to the colorful image below it. It desaturated some of the color, but also cranked the contrast a different direction and added some grey-depth. Not sure that term exists, but I am sure you get what I mean.

Sometimes I see only color, other times only form.
Somedays I see in black and white.
Other times I need to see a mix of saturated color and sharper tones.