Contrasts

f/25, 37 sec, at 20mm, 100 ISO, on a Canon EOS 60D

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Contrasts tend to be more obvious, or more noticeably absent, to my eye when working on black and white conversions. Seems to make sense being that the colors have been taken away and the contrast between light dark is all that’s left to show detail and depth. But color contrast and light and dark are not the only contrasts in an image. Take this one for example.

This is a moveable pier at the Lake Elmo Park Reserve boat launch and the shot was taken at pretty much high noon on Monday, and at 5 degrees F (perfect time for picture taking huh?). There’s obviously good contrast between the light and dark tones here, what with the noon time light, but two other contrasts stand strong in this image. First is the contrast between stationary elements and movement in the clouds. If you don’t have the stationary pier, and even the houses and trees in the background, it would just look blurred!

The other contrast is one I typically don’t look for but seem to always notice after the fact – the contrast between natural elements and man-made structures. My main focus here was to find an interesting, stationary element to place the clouds against and the pier worked great, but it wasn’t until I had the image on the computer that this contrast came to mind. It’s somewhat secondary, but it’s there and does present it’s own story for sure.

This shot was also part of an experiment for me – getting out at lunchtime with the harshest light and trying to create an interesting image. It wasn’t easy and it took several wasted frames pointing the camera at was obvious and mundane before zeroing in on this detail shot, one that I really like. This is an exercise I need to do more of to stretch my creative legs and sharpen my eye. It’s also one that is made easier with the B+W 10-Stop filter – being able to slow the shutter down to 40 seconds in the middle of the day opens up huge possibilities!

All in all, a fun and productive lunch hour! There’s probably a contrast there, too!

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• Aperture: ƒ/25
• Camera: Canon EOS 60D
• Focal length: 20mm
• ISO: 100
• Shutter speed: 37s