Category Archives: black and white
The California Academy of Sciences is one of the ten largest museums of natural history in the World and one of the newest ones having just been renovated in 2008. Melissa and I always enjoy visiting this place so much so that we bought a membership a year ago. For $99, you can get in the Academy for an unlimited number of times throughout the year and bring one guest. So far, we’ve been to the Academy roughly 5 times so our membership has paid for itself many times over. On today’s visit we took our cousin Nikki, who came from Singapore on a visit. We spent hours at the Academy of Sciences, clearly not enough time for any of us.
One of the most striking things visitors will notice as soon as they get there is the architecture. Designed by Renzo Piano, the building is a masterpiece in architecture. Utilizing the latest in green building technology, the building sustains itself. Glimpsed through the concourse’s grove of sycamores, the Academy of Science gives the impression of weightlessness. A row of steel columns soaring 36 feet high along the facade lends the building a classical air; the sense of lightness is accentuated by a wafer-thin canopy above that creates the illusion that the roof is only millimeters thick. The green, living roof is a major draw as well as it showcases native plants and vegetation while helping keep the building cool in the summer months.
Sometimes there are certain images that just needs to be post processed a certain way. The image below was no exception. I shot this image in 2007 for my good friend Anna, who’s daughter Sophia is seen here gripping her daddy’s finger – such a tight grip for a small little girl. Even back then, I already had the final image in my mind. I only saw the image in as high contrast black and white photo. Most dSLRs these days have a black and white mode which most might find convenient. I’ve been shooting in digital format for quite some time now and I’ve never used this shooting mode. Not only does the black and white mode lack the levels and contrast, but you’re also limited to the type of final processed image you can have in the end. I’ve always suggested foregoing the black and white mode and simply shoot in color. You always have the option to convert it at a later date if needed.
So how do I process black and white images? It’s easy to be tempted to simply “desaturate” the image in Photoshop. However, the problem of using the desaturate command is that it doesn’t have the contrast levels necessary for an image to look stunning. This particular image was processed in Photoshop (I hardly use Photoshop these days as I’ve solely used Lightroom in all of my post processing). I used Channels to obtain the black and white look I was after.
Fast forward 3 years to 2010. I submitted the processed image as part of my application for stock photography knowing there could be a chance that they would reject the image because of the amount of processing it took to achieve the look. To my surprise, they rejected two of my “unprocessed” images and accepted this one instead. Go figure.
I have to admit though, a black and white image such as this one, if done correctly, evokes a very powerful emotion from your viewers. So the secret is out… well… at least, just on this image.
