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Posts Tagged ‘black and white’

Ballroom Dance, Event, Photography | 0 comment

Ballroom in Black and White

Sepia toned ballroom dance - ©TimeLine Media

Having the option of getting your prints in black and white has been an important part of my photography business. In this age of having an extraordinary amount of images being produced by cell phone post processing becomes an important part of the professional photographer’s toolkit. I used to like Photoshop Actions and Lightroom Presets to make cross processed colors. Additionally these can make other strange contortions to make my images stand out. However, I have moved away from that look. Now, it is only color or monochrome images that I show. At this time the black and whites are quickly becoming my favorite for a lot of dance images.

Arthur Murray Dancing

Black and White ballroom dance - ©TimeLine Media
Black and White ballroom dance – ©TimeLine Media

Taking the color out of images really makes the subjects stand out. This makes it a challenge for the photographer to make sure there is a good subject in a good position! If you have a bad photo composition in color, changing it to black and white will NOT help. It all starts with composition – a good subjects placed correctly in the frame will look good in either, but it can be enhanced by removing the distraction of color information so that the viewers are forced to consider the subject alone.

Black and White ballroom dance - ©TimeLine Media
Black and White ballroom dance – ©TimeLine Media

Monochrome images rely on the light tones to show off subject, and the dark tones to reduce other non-essential elements in the frame. In creating these images, I use an adjustment brush darken areas that are no important, and lighten faces, hands, and part that I want to catch the viewer’s eye. The lightest parts of a scene will draw your eye first through the frame, so emphasize those parts by lightening them above the background.

Black and White ballroom dance - ©TimeLine Media
Black and White ballroom dance – ©TimeLine Media

Adding a sepia tone is also an option that I offer for prints on the website. This takes the tones in the shadows and darker areas, and gives them a slight brown town that simulates and aging print. This is also a popular option and is easily created after all the color is removed from the original photo. The effect is the same on the viewer but adds a little more nostalgic feel to the image.

Sepia toned ballroom dance - ©TimeLine Media
Sepia toned ballroom dance – ©TimeLine Media

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Event, Music, Photography | 0 comment

SingStrong – Without Color

Blake Lewis at SingStrong DC - ©TimeLine Media

Photographing SingStrong musicians performing is one of the most exciting projects you can have! These artists have done hours of practice with their groups before going on stage. In a cappella, all-vocal music, the performers are really bare out in front of the crowd without any instruments to “hide” behind when singing. The groups really rely on each other during their sets.

A cappella Festival

Blue Jupiter at SingStrong DC - ©TimeLine Media
Blue Jupiter at SingStrong DC – ©TimeLine Media

The musical art form obviously is focused on affecting your ears more than your eyes. A photographer is usually concerned about the visuals – trying to keep distracting elements from getting in front of your main subjects. Anything that can be moved out of the way prior to firing the shutter will save lots of time in Photoshop later. For photographing live music, there is a lot of things in front of the performers that serve the primary function for the audience – speakers, wires, microphones, etc.

Ten at SingStrong DC - ©TimeLine Media
Ten at SingStrong DC – ©TimeLine Media

All of these things add to the environment of the scene. At SingStrong, the sound setup is one of the best I have ever come across for vocal music. Marty and his crew really work magic to make sure the audio is perfect for both the performers and the people in the seats. The lighting setup makes it very easy to photograph giving lots of options to shoot the performers. They have strong backlights, spotlights from the front of the house, and other accents that they use throughout the night.

Blake Lewis at SingStrong DC - ©TimeLine Media
Blake Lewis at SingStrong DC – ©TimeLine Media

Changing these select image to monochrome helps to blend the distracting elements so that the performers are still front and center. Pushing the high ISO settings from the camera, then additionally pushing the sliders in post make for a nice grain in dark areas. It transforms these images in a pleasing way to me. It shows how hard the performers are emoting and working to connect with the listeners.

Monochrome A cappella - ©TimeLine Media
Monochrome A cappella – ©TimeLine Media

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Ballroom Dance, Event, Photography, Technology | 0 comment

Black and White Ballroom Dancers

Dancesport monochrome photo - ©TimeLine Media

Washington, DC

It is rare that I shoot ballroom dancing in black and white. For those that shoot RAW files with their cameras, it is possible to shoot in monochrome styles and preserve the color information in your images. What is displayed on the back of your camera is a JPG file. If you shoot to JPG files, there are many settings that the camera makes for you – sharpening, white balance, color saturation, that are more difficult to change once the settings are “baked in” to the JPG file. If you shoot RAW, all of these settings can be manipulated in the RAW processor/converter software afterwards. Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw which is built into recent versions of Adobe Photoshop, are examples of these.

Ballroom dance monochrome photo - ©TimeLine Media
Ballroom dance monochrome photo – ©TimeLine Media

Black and White Images

Most digital cameras allow users to shoot monochrome images directly in camera. If you shoot to JPG, the color data from your image will be tossed out by the camera. It will be impossible to recover this color information. Similarly to shooting on black and white negatives on a film camera this information is not recorded. However, if you shoot to desaturated RAW files, the only file that will be black and white is the JPG preview that will be show on the back of the camera. The RAW file will still retain all the color information taken at the time of capture.

Ballroom dance monochrome photo - ©TimeLine Media
Ballroom dance monochrome photo – ©TimeLine Media

That being the case, you can easily go back to the RAW file and convert it to black and white in Lightroom, and possibly do a better conversion than your camera! The images in posting today were all captured in RAW files. Although it does take up more room on your memory cards and hard drives to do so, there are just so many advantages to shooting in RAW, that I cannot see myself doing it any other way. This color to black and white conversion is just one of the many reasons to do so.

Dancesport monochrome photo - ©TimeLine Media
Dancesport monochrome photo – ©TimeLine Media

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

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