Walking upon a Stone (in Black & White)

Click image to view larger

After viewing the last blog entry, a dear friend suggested that this photo would be a good candidate for black and white. Knowing myself, I will never pass up any suggestion.

Below is a side-by-side comparison. Which one do you like better? If you have a preference either way, drop me a line. I love to hear from you.

Click image to view larger

-Quan.
March 2011.

12 comments :: Walking upon a Stone (in Black & White)

  1. Hi anh Daniel,

    Thank you for visiting, and offering your opinion and suggestion.

    -Quan.

  2. Depending on you. What do you want to show? Tonal range or the composition by color? It is not because of the B&W pix have the "fine-art" look, as many have conceived. BTW, converting blindly an image to B%W, to me, is really stupid and baseless. (A lot of people think that if a pix is a great pix, it should be in B&W.) If you want to emphaize on tones, show your pix in B&W. You should (and must) provided a good reason of your action. That's maturity in thinking.

  3. Byrle, thank you for the comment and the pick. So, another vote for color. -Quan.

  4. 40 years ago, I had an assignment to photograph a dumping of potatoes in Idaho in support of a farmer's strike. Problem is they had dumped the spuds about ten minutes before I got there. Visualize, if you can, a ton and a half of potatoes laying on the ground in October. And this to become a black and white print in the daily paper? Luckily the farmer doing to dumping, had his ten year old son with him and they had a spud fork. Get the picture? I am a total fan of B&W but in this instance I think I will have to go with the color version and even as I write I am going back and forth in my determination. Still color I guess?

  5. Hello anh Quan,

    Those are great! However, I prefer the B & W one. Just my own opinion. I 'd like to have a little more contrast and sharp. Very good shot!!

    Daniel

  6. I'm far from an expert, and I am a big fan of black and white photography...but I prefer the color version of this photo.

  7. Hi McKenzie,

    Thank you very much.

    -Quan.

  8. Hi anh Tien,

    Good to hear from you.

    I agree with you about the thoughtless b&w conversion, and the misconception bias about b&W as fine-art. I usually think in term of b&w or colors before I press the shutter button.If you read this: http://1lens.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/shopping/ , you'll understand me better.

    In this instance, I do have reasons to convert this photo to b&w. Since, I am asking my viewers for their opinions, I didn't want to state any preconceptions which may have any influence on their votes.

    So, which one do you like better?

    -Quan.

  9. I agree with Tien Pham. When I think about B&W images I think about the tonal range that the subject reveals since I would like to get close to the full range of the zone system (at least a 5 zone range). Your B&W image is very nice as is your color version. At the moment I am toying with the possibility of converting a color pic of a great egret into a B&W. I recently did a conversion of a water lily into B&W which went well I think. http://www.pbase.com/morryb2000/image/131616941
    and http://www.pbase.com/morryb2000/image/131630708
    I encourage you to continue examining your images and see which ones would be more striking as B&W's

  10. Thanks Morry.

  11. Hi Quan,

    I like the color version of the photo though. Somehow the B&W version does not have a good apperance like your previous photos. It's just MHO.

  12. Hi anh Nghiep,

    Thank you for stopping by and offering your preference. It's really helpful to me to receive these feedback. It's going to take me some time to ponder this.

    -Quan.

Post a Comment