Monochromic Creativity

Change of Home

BondBloke — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 08:32:00 +0000

I have decided that it was about time to bring all of my photo blogs under one umbrella; that has now been done, and all future photos for this blog will be found, under the appropriate category,here.

Broken Window

BondBloke — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 12:01:22 +0000

Very few of us really look above our eye level, and it is quite amazing what we miss. Personally I think that, sometimes, what is going on up there is much more interesting than what is in front of us. This window for instance, not that colourful, and a prime candidate for B&W treatment to bring out the drama of those cracks and the overall texture within the image. Oh, yes, I used a perspective crop to make it look as if one is looking straight on at it, rather than looking up at it above one’s head.

Ivy Leaves

BondBloke — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 08:47:15 +0000

I was taking a walk along the Water of Leith enjoying the pre-spring sunshine and the opening crocuses when I spotted these ivy leaves against the sun, and was attracted by the light through, and reflected off of, them. After working on the original version it struck me that it would also work well in Black and White, and I think it does.

Roots

BondBloke — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 09:09:00 +0000

Found during a walk in Roslin Glen.

Wood Grain

BondBloke — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 16:08:04 +0000

I just love the patterns of wood grain, and looking at a table top recently I spotted these two knots which had been cut through producing some fantastic lines.

Waterlily Revisited

BondBloke — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 16:31:43 +0000

I have revisited this particular image because I was never completely happy with it, and took some head scratching to work out what exactly was wrong with it. It didn’t take me that long to work it out, but near a month to get around to correcting it. If you look at the previous image you will notice a couple of blades of grass intruding from the left of the picture, and it was these which were causing my unhappiness with the image. So, I fired up Photoshop, went back to the RAW image, did a monochrome conversion, as before, then using the spot healing brush (which uses Content Aware in CS5) to remove the offending items. Also whilst I was working on the image I decided to add a layer mask to bring a hint of colour back into the flower and the leaf just right of centre. At the end of the day I now have an image which I am not only happy with, but which is a much more pleasing image overall.

Kitchen Collage

BondBloke — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 16:25:58 +0000

Constructing a collage is so much easier in the digital age, especially when one has Photoshop to aid the process. No more cutting and pasting, or having to deliberately distort the image whilst processing, if you don’t like a particular result just a few clicks back to a point you were happy with and continue once more.

Update:-

A full colour version can be found here.

Crombie Reservoir

BondBloke — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:15:39 +0000

The original of this had some beautifully subtle pastel colours which I thought detracted from the reflections somewhat, so I played around with it, finally deciding to see what it looked like in Black and White. While I think that both versions have their own aesthetic merit, I do think that this version brings out the reflections, and the ice, much more than the original.

Portrait of a GOM

BondBloke — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 13:30:07 +0000

Otherwise entitled “Self Portrait of an Idiot“

Half a Bike

BondBloke — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 11:29:48 +0000

It just struck me as quite bizarre…