What is a photographer to do? This question plagued me as I hiked into Hamilton Falls in Jamaica State Park, VT one Saturday after Thanksgiving. There was just a dusting of snow here and there along the West River. I was struggling to find a composition that would excite me and lamenting the lack of color when it struck me. Of course!!! Black and white!!! My partner shoots 4x5 black and white and the images are quite spectacular. She has been chiding me for some time to shoot black and white, but I'm a little slow.
Using a digital camera allows for such flexibility. I capture the image in color, adjust tones and colors in Photoshop and use an adjustment layer to convert to black and white. It's a non-destructive means of conversion and I have the color version, too. I am by no means very adept at this, but I'm learning. Here are a couple of images from my day in Vermont.
The Dumplings, West River Vermont

Hamilton Falls, Jamaica State Park, VT

1 comment:
Nice, Lizz. Both of them.
I took your recommendation on the B&W thing as an alternative to uninspiring color shots in a recent post, but found that by keeping a low color saturation I felt more depth in one of the photos. It put the more distant spruces clearly behind the phalanx of tree trunks which comprise the main subect of that particular photo.
Thanks for the advice, my friend!
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