Pictures below from Vicki:
I love looking at black and white photography. It seems to tell such a strong story and show a real sense of emotion. But I am often torn when I have a photograph full of beautiful colors and try converting it to B/W. So one of my "goals" this year is to learn more about B/W images. What makes them so telling and how to properly take an image and convert it over. All week long I was debating over what I wanted these pictures to look like. I couldn't really find anything that suited me....until Friday. Friday was the most dreary, nasty day we have had in a while here in Charlotte. The kind that makes your hair all crazy and everything slippery for no reason! As I'm pulling into my driveway that afternoon Tiny Hautop #1 says "Mommy this looks like the misty forest." One of her fav Backyardagains episodes. She is so right. The fog was so thick that it had sucked all of the color out of the trees and sky. And suddenly my B/W challenge had begun! Big hair and all I grabbed the camera and decided to start snapping. The two tree images are from my yard that day. And are straight out of the camera. Taken at 1/25, f4.5, and ISO 400. You know I love trees from previous blogs. :) I found the stark contrast of the sky and the trees to be perfect! After some thought however it seemed like I had cheated on the challenge. I mean the whole point to was to convert an image. And I had a great B/W pic but had not technically converted it. So for good measure I threw in a pic from my trip to the park early Sunday morning. I met some great friends and their insanely cute 1yr old son for a session. You'll see them later this week in a post. During that time I actually found a blooming tree!! Now these blooms were a soft pink and absolutely gorgeous. I teared up a bit converting the image but I've always been a rule follower. So I changed it to B/W and completed my homework assignment. lol I actually like it. I think the change really shows off the details in the petals. This image was shot at 1/400, f2.8, ISO 400. That's all for this week. I will probably revisit this challenge in a few weeks. Practice makes perfect!
Images below from Erin:
This week, I was forced to step out of my comfort zone when my first plan for this challenge did not pan out. I have learned over this journey that my joy is photographing people, and more than that, photographing people doing things they love. I have a hard time with posed photography too because it feels so forced and I would rather let people be themselves and stand back to capture their true selves. I suppose that's why I enjoy sports and playtime family sessions most of all. So, my original plan had been to take pictures at my son's basketball game. If you know me at all, you know that I have my camera with me at any and all sporting events that my kids are involved in playing. On top of that, I am the team photographer for many of their sports. Sadly, basketball has stopped me dead in my tracks! Why you ask? The lighting is absolutely terrible to the point where my only option is to raise my ISO (film speed in the days of film) so high that all the shots are incredibly grainy. I was so sad because I LOVE the game of basketball and to add to it, Brett (my husband) is coaching and I thought it would be fun to have lots of pictures from the season. I took the camera to the first game and was so discouraged that I have not taken it with me since. When Vicki suggested B&W for this week, I immediately thought that maybe switching the pictures to B&W might take some of the focus off of the grain. Sadly, life simply got in the way on Saturday and I was not able to take the pictures as planned. So, that left me one day to figure out what would be my new focus! Luck would have it that I woke up Sunday morning to everything covered in a fairly dense fog. Looking out my window I thought that maybe the fog and nature would be a fun thing to photograph for the challenge. So, I forced myself out of bed and into the car to the park in the neighborhood with a cute little pond. Since I was up early the water was completely calm and made for some great reflections. Although I felt like a "real" photographer up early with all of my gear and in the "elements" with nothing but me and my camera, I think I will leave this type of photography to someone else and stick with what I love :-)
And there you have it folks. Great minds do think alike! For next week we both have some fun session images to post. So our weekly challenge is going to be 2 weeks out. We will be capturing motion. Get ready to crank up those shutter speeds! Send us a shout out if you would like to follow along or submit your fav black and white photo! We would LOVE to hear from you!
Erin and Vicki
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