Category: Pacific Northwest

It may have been the first day of spring, but “The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play…”

Even so, the dogs and I took a walk on that “cold, cold, wet day”.

Black and white photo of the creek winding across the tide flats and clouds on a chilly first day of spring. — More beach, for Jez.

Similar to the photo above, but with the emphasis on the sky instead of the creek. — More sky, for Hammad.

For Water, Water Everywhere (Photos by Jez) and Weekend Sky (Blog of Hammad Rais).

Yesterday did not feel at all like spring. A chilly, gray day, so dark that photos came out almost black and white. Sometimes converting to black and white can be more appealing than a photo where the colors are muddy gray from a lack of light. Also, it is easier to bring out the details in black and white clouds. So I gave it a try.

Technique for black and white clouds

To coax out the cloud details in the above photos I blended together two layers in the GIMP*. The first used desaturation (colors>desaturate>desaturate). The second layer used the color-to-gray algorithm (colors>desaturate>color-to-gray). Then I used the multiply blend mode on the top layer (the color-to-gray one) and applied a layer mask to limit the effect to the sky.

If you’d like to try this, check out this post: Black-and-white digital photo processing part 3: Using the GIMP. It describes the different tools for black and white available in the GIMP.

*GIMP stands for Gnu Image Manipulation Program; it is open source (free) software. I’ve never used Photo Shop, but many compare the GIMP to it. The GIMP resides on your computer and does not require internet (“cloud”) access.

Quick Note:

In case you are unfamiliar, the quotes at the top are from The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss:

The sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.
So we sat in the house
All that cold, cold wet day.
Dr. Seuss

Mossy bridge

19 March 2021

Kate

Black and white digital photo of a mossy bridge near Latourell Falls on the East Historic Columbia River Highway.

This mossy bridge is by Latourell Falls in the Columbia Gorge. We found it following the old US Highway 30, a.k.a., East Historic Columbia River Highway. I stopped the car at the falls because the filtered sunlight on the moss caught my eye. I’m not sure why I decided to experiment with black and white, since the scene was closer to monochrome in green. But the lines of the old bridge, probably a CCC project during the depression, suit black and white.

The original photo of the mossy bridge shows the moss better than the black and white, on the other hand the black and white emphasizes the elegant lines of the old bridge.

I took this picture with my Sony RX10iv camera, settings were: f13, ISO 100, 1/25s, 18.92mm focal length. I used the GIMP’s Desaturate filter in the Colors menu and a vignette to create the black and white. For a little information about using open source software to create black and white images check out this post: Black and white digital photo processing: Part 1.

For Brashley Photography’s Mid-Week Monochrome and Alive and Trekking’s Which Way photo challenges.