Burning the midnight oil and getting things done. If you want to get anywhere in life, don’t make excuses, make efforts towards your goals. I certainly have mine and I work towards them every day. Even if it means pulling overtime and your 9-5 then coming home, caffeinated and back on your own grind.
That being said, I’m bringing to you one of my personal shoots taken this past July at the City of Lake Worth’s Star Spangled Band Showcase. I did actually go out to just show my support to one of my favorite Blues/Rock band, Sunny South except we know how it usually ends up when I go out to “support”. 9 times out of 10 I take my little extension out and begin clicking away. That is after I took a leisurely stroll through all the delicious food trucks and tents checking out some of the wares the vendors bough to sell. All the pretty little stones and all around hippie vibe. It was certainly a good time but I digress.
I’ve been working on fine tuning my black and whites lately, so on this outing I decided to shoot strictly in monochrome. I wanted to see what differences my shooting style would take on as opposed to converting the image to black and white later in post. Shooting in monochrome forces you to pay closer attention to texture and composition instead of focusing on the color of your scenes.
I found that one of the benefits of previewing and shooting in black and white was eliminating that distraction of color. I have read that if you can master seeing in black and white and adjusting yourself to tonal contrasts as opposed to color variations, it can actually improve your color photography. The basis of a good black and white image is tonal contrast. The way that light and dark tones are arranged within the composition. And tones, they are the building block of a great color image.
Now, I shoot RAW so regardless of what shooting style I’m set at, my files retain the color information. Basically my image file is a negative which makes it easy for me to switch back over to color in post if I really was feeling a shot in that way. Now personally, I do love monochromatic photos. I think they carry far more emotion in them than their color counterparts, but that is just a personal opinion. Obviously color shows moods equally well.
So here is a peek in to my monochrome night with Sunny South. I did decide to leave a few in color just to give you a little variety. Maybe you get a little understanding of my eye and consider for yourselves why I chose those specific ones in color. I hope you enjoy my favorites. Please feel free to check the full set out on my Facebook page. As always, likes, shares and especially feedback is always welcomed and appreciated.
