Some photographers consider silhouettes cheating. They say they’re too easy to take, but I really don’t think that’s the case. A good silhouette often requires a substantial amount of thought: Where do you put the subject in the composition? Where do you put the sun in relation to the subject? Should the sun be visible? Or should it be hidden behind the subject? How do you correctly expose for such vast dynamic range so the tones between black and white look their best? In creating a good silhouette, I think there may be more decisions here than with most photos. Sometimes the camera can make a good call, but not always.
Chapter 18: Finally, a Paul Reid video on editing monochrome.
The Leica Q2 Monochrom journal.
One of the worst parts about shooting images with a monochrome camera (like the Leica Q2M) is that there were no decent videos that teach you how to edit black-and-white RAW files in Lightroom. The YouTube videos all focus on converting color files to monochrome. Useful for most, but it doesn’t help those of us shooting with a black-and-white sensor. A pure monochrome file is a different beast since the color controls don’t apply.
The glow in the sky at the horizon or at the edges of a subject is a natural phenomenon. However, it can get out of hand in editing. Some look at this phemonon as a curse. Others see it as an effect. And you’ll commonly see gaudy Instagram photos where the hi-def is overdone creating unnatural halos around subjects. Heck, for that matter you commonly see it on fine art prints too. My personal thought is that the glow is not a sin and can be tastefully enhanced.
Boing is not so special. And that’s why players seem to like what it does: No drowning your signal in reverb soup. No ambience that wears out its welcome. No artificial shimmer. Just sweet, amp-like spring reverb as Leo Fender intended it.
Current obsession: Discomfort Designs Phantom Limb pedal.
The long-awaited return of deja vu.
What’s Phantom Limb? The tl;dr: version: An always-recording, 15-60 second memory loop that feeds a menagerie of randomly-triggered, harmoniously-pitched, forward-and-reverse microloopers that then feeds into a long delay. The result? You play a riff and incidental cinematic music back at you.
wolfe with an e's blog
