Michael Hill Fine Art Black and White Photography

Location: Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, Australia

Between 2001 and 2006 I took several different business trips to Sydney; speaking engagements where I rarely got out of the hotel. These steps lead away from the Opera House into the Royal Botanic Gardens. It is a sprawling garden of mostly open space, lawn and trees with winding pathways. This photograph was taken with the sun high in the afternoon, but because of the trees surrounding the area the heaviness of the sun was cut, while leaving this image of perfectly perpendicular lines. On the right side of the stairwell is a heavy black iron railing that provides the vertical shadows in this image. If you look closely in the upper right corner you will see the short section of a diagonal which is cast from the top handrail.

A simple set of steps.  A simple thing kept simple and straight forward.  We complicate things to much, and some days I believe that I do this more so that anyone I know.  But this image reminds me that truly some things should be left as they are — simple.  We complicate things too much and create too much busyness most of the time.  For as much as I stress over inactivity and often seem unable to simply relax and enjoy a moment of quiet, images like this provide an opportunity to immerse yourself studying the details of life.

There was a book published a few years ago called “Flow” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi; the premise was that in those moments that we loose track of time we are experiencing the ‘flow of life’ and we have found the thing that energizes our soul.

from page 97… “Even the simplest physical act becomes enjoyable which it is transformed as to produce flow.  The essential steps in this process are: (a) to set an overall goal, and as many subgoals as a realistically feasible; (b) to find ways of measuring progress in terms of goals chosen; (c) to keep concentrating on what one is doing, and to keep making finer and finer distinctions in the challenges involved in the activity; (d) to develop the skills necessary to interact with the opportunities available; and (e) to keep raising the stakes if the activity becomes boring.”

What a perfect recipe for the photographer.  From initial capture to final print, the act of photography and printmaking gives us the opportunity to do all of these things.  How long can you spend waiting for the perfect light?  How many hours can be spent working an image in the darkroom until the contrast is just right; the highlights just right and the shadows powerful and not fully opaque?  For anyone whose career began before “digital”, the concept of workflow is not only not new, it was a critical part of being able to create anything (try to make a print if the chemical mix is not write, or failing to apply fixative at the right point in the process. As digital photography began to to emerge as a mainstream mode of photography,  the concept of workflow had to be taught to a new generation of photographers who never worked in a darkroom.

The concept of workflow in the digital imaging field has become a cottage industry of tools and software specialized for specific steps in the process; workflow tools for digital asset management; workflow for tools for sharpening — raw pre-sharpening, image sharpening and output sharpening; workflow tools for black and white conversion; or workflow tools for the application of specific overlays for emulating mat and frame styles for digital output.  Understanding workflow is not just relevant to the photograph-to-print process; read a book on composition, exposure control, lighting or portraiture; they all describe an approach that is indicative of workflow.  From understanding workflow, we have the opportunity to develop, and lose ourselves in the development of our craft; experiencing the flow that Mihaly speaks of.

Two texts have most strongly influenced the workflow I use in the black and white image development process; “Mastering Digital Black and White” by Amadou Diallo and “Digital Photography Fine Print Workshop” by George DeWolfe.  Dewolfe also has a plugin for Photoshop that is specifically designed to facilitate the enhancements of the perceptual qualities that he describes in the book; perceptual qualities that are essential to the creation of a image or print that comes alive in the mind of the viewer.

About the Workflow

The image consists of a simple set of steps, simple lines and the overall image is not complex at all; and yet if you take the time to really look at the image, the cracks and markings in the concrete steps give this image its interest.    The portions of the concrete steps that still have some of the characteristics of newly poured concrete, while other portions are heavily stained from years of dirt, moss and aging.  Large cracks, small hairline fractures.  Overlay the shadows from the handrails and this image is all about finding the right mix of highlight and shadows, lights and darks; the mixture of global and local contrast that makes a simple set of steps something more.  Though it was taken as a color image (as in all my work), this photograph has very little color at all.  Drawing out the contrast and pulling the shadows and highlights, lights and darks was the primary goal.

The preliminary global contrast work was performed in Lightroom.  Though I have discussed this before, the typical sequence of events are listed below:

1. Initial adjustment to exposure to adjust the overall dynamic range of the image, as represented by the histogram, while eliminating loss of detail in shadows or blown highlights.
2. I do a macro adjustment of contrast using the lightness and blacks rather than the contrast tool in Lightroom; I feel this gives me finer control.
3. Recovery and Clarity sliders are occasionally used, but this typically happens when I have a highlight problem I am trying to get under control.  In my last blog you saw the image Sunset and Endless Sea; this image took a lot of tradeoffs between exposure, brightness, blacks, recovery and clarity controls to achieve the final feel.
4. Color to B/W conversion for global contrast adjustments — There are different techniques that can be used here but I prefer to work with the B&W mix tool in Lightroom.  This allows me to target contrast adjustments based on the underlying color in the image.
5. Final macro contrast adjustment using the Highlight/Light/Dark/Shadow adjustment tool.
6. Presharpening — I do minimal sharpening here and  only apply sharpening when viewing the image at 1:1 (100%) scale.  The purpose of presharpening should be to eliminate the softness of the RAW image, nothing more.

With that, the image goes to Photoshop for final work.

Well, that is it for now; I will dedicate my next blog to the Photoshop work involved in a typical image.  As a bit of a teaser, I will share with you the next installment of ‘featured images’; and I will walk you through the Photoshop work used in the process.  The image to the right is as it was shot, it was a phenomenal view!

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