Black and White Magic Day 3

Hi and welcome to the Third Day of Black and White Magic.

I’m pleased to see our Facebook page filling up with wonderful Black and White imagery!!

Today’s post processing tutorial will look at using the Twin Hue and Saturation Method of converting an image to Black and White.  It’s a fun and easy method and offers quite a few opportunities to play with the Black and White tones of your image and being creative with the lighting using color.

The project files that accompany this lesson can be downloaded HERE

 

 

 TECH TALK

Today we are going to talk about COMPOSITION!!

Perhaps the most well known principles of photographic composition is know as the ‘Rule of Thirds‘.

The “Rule of Thirds” is the basis for well balanced and interesting shots. The rule of thirds states than an image is most pleasing when its subjects or regions are composed along imaginary lines which divide the image into thirds — both vertically and horizontally:

I will say straight away though that there will always be instances where rules are meant to be broken and ignoring this one doesn’t mean your images are necessarily unbalanced or uninteresting. Quite often great drama shots, patterns and abstracts work best when they are filled with symmetry!

However a wise person once told me that if you intend to break the rules, you should always learn them first.
So let’s look at some examples…..

By using an overlay over the original image I can see that 2/3rds of the flower are in the left hand side of the picture and the top left.  This gives us a nice visual balance and a good amount of negative space in front of the flower.

In the landscape example, the horizon line in the background is pretty well at the 1/3rd mark, matching the rule of thirds horizontally.  the clumps of mountains fall fairly close to the rule of third lines vertically too.

In this instance you may consider the RULE to be broken, however the focal point of the image only consumes about 1/3 of the horizontal plane – so it’s almost and inverse interpretation of the rule and the image looks pleasing to the eye.

The rule of thirds works well for most images,  but what if there was still another rule you could incorporate into your photographic repertoire?

Enter Fibonacci’s Ratio…

Also known as the Golden Mean, Phi, or Divine Proportion, this law was made famous by Leonardo Fibonacci around 1200 A.D. He noticed that there was an absolute ratio that appears often throughout nature, a sort of design that is universally efficient in living things and pleasing to the human eye. Hence, the “divine proportion” nickname.

This ratio can be used in many ways to compose a photograph. Lightroom  and Photoshop even has a golden ratio overlay option when you go to crop on image. This way, you can line up a grid of the golden ratio to coincide with lines or points of interest in your photograph

 

To illustrate the Fibonacci Ratio I used this tree image in the snow.  You can see how the elements of the image run almost exactly along the lines of the Golden Mean.

By accident or intent.  I can honestly say that I was not thinking about the Golden Mean when I shot this, composition yes but later upon thinking about it found it matched the ratios perfectly!!

 

BREAKING THE RULES.

It’s always such fun to break the rules of composition and I find myself doing that most often with graphic intensive images and those with patterns.  I often do it with bridges too, where the symmetry of the structure lends itself to perfect replication and balance on both sides.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shooting Assignment #3

1. Use the Rule of Thirds in composing your photographs today.  You can shoot any subject matter you choose.  I’ve included the overlay in your work files so that you can use it as a guide.

2. Try for a composition that uses the Fibonacci Ratio.  Not as easy perhaps but have a go!

3. Break the rules.  Show me some symmetry and centering.

 

That’s all for today.

Have fun!!