The Beauty of B/W HDR
by Jim Austin
Oscar Rejlander’s (1813 -1875) studio was unusual; shaped like a cone, the camera would be in the narrow part, the sitters at the opposite end. The camera was in shadow so that the sitters were less aware of it. He estimated his exposure by bringing his cat into the studio; if the cat’s eyes were like slits, he would use a fairly short exposure. If they were a little more open than usual, he would give extra exposure. If the pupils were totally dilated he would admit defeat, put the lens cap on the lens and go out for a walk!” ~ Robert Leggat, 1999
Cats, much to their delight, no longer must endure conscription for use as light meters. Instead of cat’s eyes, we use other tools to expand the usable range of light. HDR photography is one of these important new tools, as it lets us preserve exquisite fine detail in a scene. We explore the appeal of black and white HDR here, with regard to personal and visual awareness.
While the first two parts of this article looked at color HDR, this article investigates key qualities behind interesting black and white HDR work, with suggestions for a B/W workflow. First, we consider why HDR imaging techniques leave the feline method in the dark.
Why black and white HDR?
Think of each black, grey and white picture tone as a separate instrument in an orchestra. Filling out the tones is like adding extra players to the ensemble. Just as your musical experience in listening to the Boston Pops is different than hearing a quartet, so does a wider range of black and white tones in a photograph allow for a greater reach of emotional expression.
B/W HDR also solves an old problem. When photographing everyday scenes, brilliant whites and deep blacks can result in washed-out highlights on the one hand, and blocked-up shadows on the other.
HDR bracketing and multiple exposure, help manage this lack of tone control. In Photos 1a and 1b here, compare the HDR multiple exposure at left with one single exposure at right. Shadow details are excellent in the HDR image and the daylight outdoors is not washed out because of the greater highlight detail captured during the HDR process. By the way, there was a cat in the bar but it was too dark inside to see its pupils.
1a. “The Bull, Key West” A six exposure HDR image with 1-stop bracketing, and Tone Mapping in Photomatix Pro 2.4. Highlights show much better detail
1b. A Single Exposure taken in the middle of the bracketed series. There is loss of both highlight and shadow detail.
What Makes Black and White HDR interesting?
Tonal Range, Visual Elements, Photographer’s Personal Qualities
The alchemy of B/W HDR is to make the unseen visible. One of the implied, unseen elements in photography is the movement of time. In the B/W HDR composition above, revered names of people who were killed in the Holocaust seem to recede without a fixed vanishing point, and so to go on indefinitely, conveying a sense of the infinite.
For “Holocaust Memorial,” I made three exposures. Combining these frames in an HDR software program called Photomatix Pro 2.4© brought out these carved names in a deeply-shaded corner of the memorial. Using Photomatix© helped expand the range of tones in this image; this enlarged tonal range made the image more graphic and austere. The deeply detailed blacks gave the photograph a solidity and sense of presence. Together, the tones and their presence add to the graphic appearance of B/W HDR in general. The perception that abstract and graphic qualities are expressed by the tones of the picture is not a new one to the photographic arts. It was explored by master photographers like Edward Weston, whose prints had subtle and well-defined transitions from light to dark. B/W HDR draws on this tradition; what makes it of interest now is the way a larger tonal range once again enlivens the abstract and graphic beauty of black and white.
2. “Holocaust Memorial”: 3 exposures combined in Photomatix 2.4 © by Jim Austin.
Visual Elements: Composition and Symbolism
Two more key ingredients for successful black and white HDR are the visual elements and the personal elements. Visual elements of interesting B/W HDR include composition, shape, and symbolism. To use these ingredients in ways that work for your imagery, it may help to ask: “What attracts me to this scene — is it the color, or is this a good picture regardless of whether it is in color or black and white?” If you can identify the design elements in your scene before you photograph in B/W HDR, you are on your way to creating a more powerful composition.
Where visual elements of design support a photograph, they expand its symbolic components, and this goes for B/W HDR pictures as well. For instance, a photograph can act as an analogy. The brilliant photography critic Susan Sontag pointed this out: “what makes something interesting is that it can be seen to be like, or analogous to, something else.” For example, at first glimpse, the fins above the bumper of a Chevrolet Bel Air (Image 3) reminded me of a large modern building. Later on, I titled the image because it also reminded me of the hit song by Don McLean, “American Pie” with his famous line “drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry.” As the image evolved I had other associations, with more symbolism, which enhanced its interest.
3. “Chevy Above the Levy” © by Jim Austin
Visual Elements: Tones in Time are Symbolic
When they are well-crafted, the tones in a B/W HDR are captivating. This is partly due to what the tones represent. Subtle changes from dark to light tones can act as metaphors for the passage of time. In a representative way, time’s passage can also be evoked by black and white tones within an image. Think of the sun’s shadow and where it falls on a sundial, for instance. Remember how long shadows are as the sun sets. Think about white clouds as they race across the sky above you.
Two main personal elements within a photographer’s thought process make for interesting HDR imagery.
First, learning to see in black and white is an essential exercise for the photographer’s imagination. Master photographers practice taking mental pictures of color scenes to imagine how the scene will look later when it is printed in black and white.
Second, photographers need to understand how innovative B/W HDR truly is. Black and white HDR is fundamentally different than color, not simply the result when color is removed; it is a novel process to the extent that it alters the visual language. B/W HDR adds to the emotional expressive quality of a photograph. It has a graphic sense that color images do not possess. It offers a superb way to explore landscapes and portraits that we would usually pass by because of their high contrast.
Why not use Color HDR ?
Because color makes us respond emotionally to it, color in a photograph can distract us from the heart of an image, just like a special musical effect can overwhelm the melody of a song. Without color, however, all the dark tones support and direct our attention to the emotions in a picture. B/W HDR allows tones to show character. For portrait photography, B/W HDR frees a photographer to create portraits that center on the individual.
Workflow for B/W HDR
We’ve seen several advantages to B/W HDR. Now let’s turn to the process itself. My workflow is:
1. Set up my camera menu to take 3-9 pictures, using RAW files, in color, and bracket by changing the shutter speed
2. Archive the original RAW files
3. Import the images into Photomatix Pro, version 2.4
4. Create a 32 bit color image file
5. Tone Map in Photomatix
6. Save the image as a 32 bit color .tif file to hard drive
7. Convert to 16 bits and Photoshop Enhance
8. Open in Photoshop (CS 2 or newer)
9. Convert to 16 bits, convert to black and white using Photoshop’s channel mixer adjustment layer.
The Workflow Process:
Using a digital camera, capture the image in color, in RAW file format. Your first decision depends on having a tripod. If you do not have a tripod, hand hold the camera, and take 3 bracketed exposures. To do this, use a Manual camera setting. Remember, you will keep the same aperture and bracket with shutter speeds.
You can also use auto bracketing; most cameras only allow 3 shots in this mode. So, take 3 exposures: at -2 below the camera meter; at 0 or at the exposure as metered by the camera; and at +2 over the camera metered exposure. Keep your camera aperture constant to prevent the depth of focus changing between shots. Use a a tripod and cable release if you can, as you can take up to 9 -11 frames without camera movement for those scenes that have a huge contrast range.
Once you have a series of frames, save the images and open your HDR software. You can convert to black and white in Photoshop, or use the HDR software tools in Photomatix, FDR tools, Artizen HDR or Adobe Photoshop CS3. If you choose, you can use the HDR program to convert to B/W by using the saturation control set to pure black and white but by keeping the HDR as color, the flexibility of Photoshop’s channel mixer and camera raw yields better results.
One advantage of using a tripod in your workflow is that a tripod and camera release will make you slow down, and take more time to consider your composition, light and framing. This concentration will improve your images. Whatever your personal choices in software and tone mapping, try not to let the technology overwhelm your picture taking. Be true to the context and to your own vision for your photograph.
Summary: Vision for Future B/W HDR
To create interesting B/W HDR, then, photographers must be alert to wondrous contrasts that are present everywhere, and be excited to photograph these scenes. Making images with high dynamic range tools lets you appreciate detail that was always there, but you were not aware of it. With practice, the black and white HDR process helps us see shading and tonal detail in scenes that we would not have photographed before, thinking these scenes unremarkable.
The culture of B/W HDR imaging offers a modern and fresh venture for todays photographers. They can take portraits with character. They get an expanded awareness of fine shadow and highlight detail as they create photographs in places where the contrast is too great for other methods. B/W HDR even extends time-honored graphic and symbolic traditions of black and white film photography. Finally, the beauty of B/W HDR will grow with the vision of future imaginative photographers, as they work with this creative tool to expand their seeing.
About The Author
Jim Austin M.A., A.C.E., has written extensively on digital photography. He was a commercial photographer in Denver, taught digital imaging for Metro State College of Denver, and has shown work in galleries for 3 decades. He teaches Photoshop at the online campus of www.apogeephoto.com and his recent work is at http://www.flickr.com/jimagesdigital/sets
No Comments
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
