Tag: black and white

Ironworkers in Black and White

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Ironworkers Placing the Bridge Decking
Ironworkers Placing the Bridge Decking

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I decided to try some black and white images of Ironworkers today. The image above is from The Ohio River Bridges Project.  Nothing fancy just used Aperture 3 for conversion to black and white of a HDR image that I had done in the past.

Jack Alpha on top of the Big Four Bridge
Jack Alpha on top of the Big Four Bridge

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Jack Alpha is an Ironworker with T&C Construction who was working on top of the Big Four Bridge when I shot this image. I converted it to black and white in Aperture 3 using a single frame. This isn’t HDR but I still think it is full of detail.

Mitchell South Dakota

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Mitchell South Dakota VFW
Mitchell South Dakota VFW

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I was in Mitchell South Dakota a couple of years ago and found myself walking around the business district early in the morning. I came upon the local VFW Post and really liked the way the morning sun was casting shadows on the wall. I liked the juxtaposition of the circular kitchen exhaust fan, and it’s shadow, with the rectangular windows, the plaster over door and the street sign’s shadow as well as the texture of the concrete blocks in the wall. I decided to process this image in Black and White to emphasize the texture and lend an air of nostalgia.

Silhouette

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Cedric's Shadow
Cedric’s Shadow

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I shot this image yesterday morning just after sunrise. I especially liked the way the hook and the crane operator, Cedric, were silhouetted on the rusty steel retaining wall. The morning light was simply gorgeous and I have several other images that really reveal the wonderful colors. While processing them I decided to see what one would look like in Black and White. I wanted to create an image that felt like it might have been taken at the turn of the twentieth century.

I used the normal exposure value of 0 EV which rendered the scene very well. I first processed this image in Topaz Adjust as a faux HDR image which allowed me to emphasize the colors and texture. I then took the resulting version into OnOne Perfect B&W where I applied the Ambrotype preset. I also added a border within OnOne Perfect B&W using the Emulsion 003 setting with a wide border size. I didn’t need to do anything else, except to add a little sharpening, when I returned the image to Aperture 3.

Time Gone By

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Homage to A Time Gone By
Homage to A Time Gone By

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I wanted to try something a little different with these bridge images. I decided to take them into Nik Siver Efex Pro and see what might come from that. I first used my -2, 0, and +2 EV bracket set to create a HDR image in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 which I then adjusted for exposure and tone mapped it. I returned it to Aperture 3 where I made a few adjustments to saturation, vibrance and detail slider before doing my final sharpening. After doing that I took that image into NIK Silver Efex Pro where I used the antique preset to create the image above.

Light at the End of the Tunnel
Looking Back To An Earlier Time

For the image above I followed essentially the same process, bracket set to HDR then back to Aperture for some adjustments and finally into NIK Silver Efex Pro where I applied the neutral preset and chose the Agfa 400 film look along with a little red filter to finish it

Over the Top

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Over the Top

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Today’s image was taken from above the Big Four Bridge when Tim Williams took me up in the 135 foot tall man lift. We were in one of the middle spans on the bridge and as he worked the basket through the bridge super structure I saw this image. We were looking south over the top of the bridge and for the first time I saw the beauty of the elliptical  ramp that leads up onto the bridge from Waterfront Park. The ramp is a quarter mile long and is an engineering marvel. It incorporates multiple radia as it spirals up to the bridge. The engineering that went into designing and building it have led to numerous engineering and architectural awards.

I chose to process this black and white version in Aperture 3 using the Black and White adjustment panel. I tried all the various filters and ultimately opted to use the orange filter to get the level of contrast I was looking for. After that I adjusted the exposure, contrast and sharpening before exporting it as a 300 DPI JPEG file.