Here are some images I took during "mid-day" type lighting situations during a tour of Sunset Crater Volcano and Wupatki National Monuments. Despite the lack of premium light, the clouds on this day were great and allowed for some cool compositions. The volcanic landscape plus the presence of snow fields provided some contrasting tones that I feel come out surprisingly well in black and white. I'm pretty happy with them given the conditions, but would love some critique!
All three raw files were edited in Lightroom and then converted to black and white using Silver Efex Pro. The two shots from Sunset Crater were also tweaked with luminosity masks is Photoshop.
The first shot is of Sunset Crater with a lone ponderosa pine in the foregound.
The second shot is from the same area as the first photo, but looking the opposite direction across the Bonito Lava Flow with the San Francisco Peaks dominating the skyline.
I like the third one the best by a wide margin because of the wider range of tones, but especially for the way the folds in the landscape near the middle are mirrored so well by the wisps of clouds. That caught my eye immediately!
Posted by Bill Pelzmann on March 18, 2011 at 12:41 PM
Very good use of B&W to deal with the mid-day light.
I especially like how the tree is highlighted against the dark sky in #1.
A crop of just the left 2/3rds, emphasizing the tree, would also work well, if you want to simplify the composition.
Posted by Darren Huski on March 21, 2011 at 6:27 AM
Discussion
5 repliesAll three raw files were edited in Lightroom and then converted to black and white using Silver Efex Pro. The two shots from Sunset Crater were also tweaked with luminosity masks is Photoshop.
The first shot is of Sunset Crater with a lone ponderosa pine in the foregound.
I especially like how the tree is highlighted against the dark sky in #1.
A crop of just the left 2/3rds, emphasizing the tree, would also work well, if you want to simplify the composition.