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Lesson 9: Black and White Photography
The first photo ended up having more light tones than I wanted, especially in the top half of the photo. However, I wanted to include it as I thought it turned out well.
I’m falling behind on critiquing student assignments so you’ll have to bear with me. It might take me a few days to get back to you on this one.
Hello and welcome back!
I’m not sure if you’re aware but I’ve taken over the site since you’ve last posted (I think)
Hopefully I can help you get through the rest of the course.
The assignment for lesson 9 is as follows:
Lesson 9: Assignment Assignment Title: Time to See in Tones
This will be an assignment which will challenge you as a black and white photographer. For this assignment create a black and white photograph with the following characteristics
1. A wide tonal range
2. An uneven tonal balance which is unevenly slanted towards the black end of the spectrum making the photograph appear low key (dark).
You can have gray tones as well but the majority of your picture should be black tones with small amounts of white highlights.You have submitted two delightful photographs.
These are arguably two of the best black and white photographs that have been submitted in my opinion. In terms of quality the images are outstanding.
The nature of the assignment is that they both should feature more light tones than black but that’s really a minor point if you understand the difference. Both images have a somewhat wide tonal range although they both have somewhat lighter tones.
Often I run across this issue. The photographs are excellent but they don’t fulfill the exact criteria of the assignment. In this case I think you fully understand the goal and idea behind the assignment so I’m inclined to suggest you move to the next.
In terms of improving these images one suggestion would be to try to make them a little sharper. They look fine at smaller sizes but if you we’re to make much larger prints they’d be ever so slightly out of focus in certain areas.
In the first image the composition is great and everything looks lovely except for a few distracting elements. This photograph would have been almost a perfect photograph (if such a thing exists) if you had shot a fence post without the elements highlighted below. Of course this is subjective but in a minimalist photo like this less is more.
[attachment=0:2vk4kw4l]fencepost.jpg[/attachment:2vk4kw4l]
The same sharpness/focus suggestion as above applies on the second image. Another minor not is that the image appears to be slightly crooked. If you can get a tripod with a level on it. If in doubt, shoot it both ways…
These are stunning photographs and I’m happy that you’re going so well.
I can’t wait to see what you shoot next!
😀
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