The familiar in an unfamiliar light

Jameel Hyder

Jameel Hyder

Moderator
Staff member
I was going through some of my unprocessed images and it was a fun exercise. I had several compositions of this iconic area. This was shot after the "glow" had subsided. Wanted to get more the valley below and not focus too much on the arch itself. Settled on this as a B&W instead of the more popular processing.

Love to hear your comments, esp. from the B&W experts here.

 
AlanLichty

AlanLichty

Moderator
Not gonna claim to be a B&W expert by any measure but I do like what I see in this image. The lack of color is making me look at the textures in the visible geology of that view more than I usually do for the more familiar presentation. I like the contrast and the tonal range for everything under the arch.

For some reason the arch itself seems more subdued to my eyes and doesn't quite match the mood of the area below it. That might be because it's only light is incidental but it feels like it could use a boost at the bright end leaving the shadows and blacks as is.
 
beavens

beavens

Forum Helper
Jameel,

No B&W expert here either, but the conversion seems spot-on. I'd expect the arch to be more heavy in the mids and blacks for reasons that Alan mentions, but I'm cool with how it's processed. I would suggest at looking to crop some off the top - I dig the arch being in the foreground but I feel that it would be improved if you reduced the mass a bit.

Lots of depth here! MIGHT goose the contrast up a hair.

Jeff
 
Jim Dockery

Jim Dockery

Well-Known Member
Looks great to me. I too have converted some of my shots there to B&W. I've been surprised at how much the stark shapes, shadows, textures, and esp. sky in the desert lends itself to B&W.
 
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