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Rural Decay Photo Shoot
08 April 2008
This last Sunday was my latest opportunity for a photo shoot, and it was a pretty great trip. Being as I live out in the middle of rural Northeast Ohio, I took the opportunity to go explore some of the neighboring towns.
The photo shoot that followed can really be summed up by one term: “Rural Decay.” You can check out all the shots in the gallery.
It really is a sad state of affairs, and I’m afraid that (as one who is affected by it greatly) it will probably be a fairly regular topic for me. A drive through the back country fields and forests shows plot after plot of dilapidated barns, overgrown fields and lowlands that are flooded from the incredibly unusual seasonal patterns as of late.
This, my friends, is the true rural America.
I still have quite a lot to uncover through a lens on this subject, but I have already posted a few of the shots that I took from this particular trip. As spring comes and the fields green up, it just gets more beautiful and I can’t wait to go take another afternoon drive.
In the meantime, what I did want to talk about is black and white shooting. I’m a bit of a novice at this, usually much preferring color for my shots. However, I think that the black and white (and mild HDR to “wash out” some of the other shots that were left in color) helps to set the mood of some of these pictures.
The biggest challenge I had with framing what should be black and white shots is the sky - a bright white sky (which all of the images were as of the start of processing) is not nearly as open and empty as I would want - instead, it just makes you feel as if you are in an old photograph - a nice effect, but not what I was looking for.
My purpose in going black and white wasn’t to age the picture, but rather to deeply enhance the contrast - to show every dying vine, flaking paint chip and cracked board. To help that contrast with a white barn, a dark sky was needed.
This is where Adobe Lightroom becomes nearly vital. The software’s “Grayscale” conversion method (under the Develop module) is fantastic. When you switch to grayscale, your image will convert as if you made a conversion in Photoshop - nothing too special. However, if you move down the sidebar of the development functions, you’ll see that there are still Hue alterations that you can do. This actually sets the “black value” for the conversion of each of the major colors, even including whites and neutrals.
If you have a mostly blue sky and want it to go dark in the image (adding contrast to the clouds), slide the blue slider all the way to the left - it will make the blue sky go very dark. You can tweak the cyan to help catch the fringes around the clouds.
Still not dark enough? Go up to the exposure section and pump up the ‘Recover’ feature, which is designed to save blown highlights. It doubles as a reflected light remover in grayscale mode, and sliding it back and forth will help you find a good balance where the sky grades evenly. Be careful though - too little or too much of this value can create a bit of wash-out or a lot of film grain.
While you’re playing with levels, try messing around with the colors for grass and brush. You’d be surprised at how much you can control the contrast of individual elements - and for once it’s more powerful (when ease of use is considered, at least) in Lightroom than it is in Photoshop.
I hope that this will help you get the look you want with your black and white conversions. Skies in black and white are one of the hardest things to get the way you want them, but that doesn’t mean you have to settle.
Topics: Photo Shoot, Post Processing, Technique |