Black & White Photography

Some of the following photographs were originally taken in black and white, while the others I edited afterwards upon realising they worked a lot better that way. Reducing the amount of colour in a photograph drastically changes the effects it has on the viewer. In this case there wasn't much colour to work with in the first place, most of the clouds were white and grey and all the blue sky was covered up by the clouds. I guess I just liked the way it looked as I peered out my living room window armed with my camera. I have a limited amount of flexibility at my house when it comes to perspective, especially if I'm just sitting with the window open, stuck in one spot for an hour or whatever. But I'm determined to collect as many interesting and different photographs from this position. Anyway, these are the images I came up with!

Upon first glance all I saw was clouds, going from dark at the bottom slowly getting brighter near the top, until I noticed the sun (or moon? not sure haha) in the top left corner. This illuminates the clouds and creates a beautiful image that looks rather like a close up of a mushroom cloud...strange.

A larger scale photograph taken on the same night. Giving the viewer much more to look at and scan over with their eyes. The inclusion of the telephone wire in the bottom right corner was a decision I made whilst cropping certain areas out. Now that I'm looking closer I'm having doubts about whether it belongs there or not... Then again I like that it's just sitting at an angle in the corner. I'd rather it positioned there than it going further along the bottom of the image. I think without it, the photograph would look far too bare. It also gives the viewer some idea of where the photograph was taken from, what perspective I had or where I was when I took it.

I was annoyed when I came to edit this particular one because I was under the impression it was completely in focus! Sometimes when you preview a photograph on your camera screen it looks better than it actually is... Anyway I think I made the most of what I had. I cleaned up some of the loose, individual branches with iPhoto just to give the impression the branches are longer than they are. I used the sharpen tool to a certain extent as I desperately wanted the branches more in focus - I didn't want to go too far, though. On second thought actually I have no idea how I managed to take this photo! The bush that those blurry branches belong to is just over about a metre tall and with all the houses and the road in front of my house I can't understand how I was able to set those branches against this backdrop?! I took it from my living room window as well...I don't get it. Maybe I should refrain from admitting these doubts and just say everything was deliberate and for a reason haha.

This is probably my favourite out of these 4. Again, like the other 3 this photograph was taken on the same night. (Yeah it was definitely the sun behind those clouds, really looks like a sunset in this one.) My first instinct was to crop out the foreground. I figured that because the sky looked so clear and the clouds were in focus, the photograph didn't need anything else! But when I adjusted the contrast ever so slightly - I realised the roof, chimney, telephone wire and the very tip of that branch worked well as a silhouette in the foreground.

I'm pleased with what I was able to produce from just sitting at my living room window. When it comes to photographing the sky, I feel it's important to have something to tie it all together (especially when it comes to black and white images) for example even if it's a bird flying past or even better - a collection of birds! I'm lucky to have such an interesting view from my living room window, although there's only so far I can go. I know that the sky can look different every day and night, and the way that clouds form is beautiful and does encourage me to look up at there every now and then and see what I can capture - and these 4 images are evidence of that.