Port Townsend has a couple of working harbors in town and I often go there to shoot when I’m in town. By the way, the food down there is pretty good too. Maureen and I shared a delectable breakfast of cinnamon roll French toast at The Blue Moose–yes, you heard right, shared. The servings were big enough for us two girls to split! Anyway I digress back to the photo of the day.
On Saturday, the night of the Super Moon, we headed down to the water along with another new friend Don, and of course Ray. I normally don’t shoot a lot of frames compared to other photographers but recently I attended a workshop where I learned a different angle on this approach so I did shoot more than I have done in the past. In looking at the frames I shot, there were only a few that worked and this is one of them. There’s no detail in the moon but that’s a lesson I learned to try another day. Take a look Anne McKinnell’s images of the Super Moon in an ironically titled post “Creating Photos that Suck“. If I had shot multiple exposures as Anne did in her second image, I probably would have caught similar details in the moon. Ray also mentioned that using graduated ND filters would have worked as well.
At first I left the image in color as it seemed strange to convert the image into black and white. Then I started to play with the image with Silver Efex Pro. It’s no Ansel Adams “Moonrise, Hernandez , New Mexico” but I really do think the black and white works better. What do you think and why? I’d love to know…
P.S. I decided to revisit this image based on the comment from Iza. I shot the images on what I thought was tungsten but when I ran the RAW image through LR, I didn’t check the colour cast and now I’m glad I did. Here are the revised black & white and colour versions. I think they are much better. Thanks Iza!
A nice picture all around, Sabrina. I actually, like the color image better. I like the feel that the complementary blues and oranges give the image. I’ve made note of the Blue Moose!
Hmmm, the colour version seems to be resonating more….come to think of it, there seems there’s a lot of blue in PT
I do like the black and white image better. But I do not like it better in absolute better, I just like it better of the two. LEt me explain. I feel the color palette in the color image is off to what I would expect- like there was too much of magenta cast in those colors? White balance? But black and white conversions takes it away, and creates a very dramatic image with clear focus. Either way- great composition.
Iza, I think you’ve hit on something here. I’m going to take a closer look at the WB as I didn’t change it when I processed it. Thanks!
Personally, the colour image. I get more of a feel for context with the colour than the monochrome. The contrast between the intense blue (indigo? cobalt?) of the sky and the warmth of the boat makes the moon stand out more, as an out of ordinary object in the sky, but doesn’t overtake the boat as the main subject.
The black and white, I feel, confuses this, as there’s not a lot of contrast in the shot, so doesn’t separate the moon & boat and abundance of masts and lights in the background to make the point of your shot clear. The colour helps to distinguish the subject from surrounding context given the exposure of objects (which take up most of the frame) in the shot is pretty even across the picture.
But you know i like hard contrast and tend to OD on blacks, so
Argh, hit Enter too early. To continue from “so”: i might be missing the point of your image altogether!
And also I just about died seeing the images that Anne McKinnell reckons suck. If those pictures were mine, I’d be grinning from ear to ear for days!
Thanks Charlene for the feedback, and thanks for raising the comment count on this post
I’m glad you took a look at Anne’s images because I had the exact same reaction as you!
I am to please
Ok, more like I have to blather on about this stuff because I’m incapable of being succinct (case in point).
Oh and, surely this isn’t the only image from your night out??
Upon first impression, I liked the colour better. After looking at the B&W again, I liked the way that the boat’s shape(sexy curves) is more apparent than in the colour version. Then again, the colour version draws my eye for the rich colour and lighting. Tough call. Shape or lighting. Both are very nice in their unique ways.
Thanks Chris. I’d love to see how you’d shoot this scene. Hope you will get a chance to do so!
Um..what Charlene said (she’s way more articulate than me!)
I think I prefer the colour one, but to be honest I waver back and forth between them. I can imagine the colour version really BIG, and that would be beautiful.