I have been following the work of a few black and white photographers, and I really liked how they used the extreme dark parts of the photographs vs the highlighted ones. It looks amazing with street photography, but today I picked some photos that I thought could look cool and started to play with them.
It is not exactly the same result, but I think you get the idea. I have been using Photoshop to darken the parts of the photos and highlight the center of the photo. The extra bokeh that comes from the lens is a nice bonus here. Bokeh looks great every time. Simple as that.
Some lenses have this natural Vignette effect when you use them, and I noticed that this Biotar does give slightly darker corners. But I wanted more.. more!!!
Multiple layers of various effects later, and here we are.
Happy, colorful spring flowers in lovely spring sunlight look pretty moody.
Nice :)
Pasqueflowers hairy seeds are one of the coolest plants to shoot. The flower itself is very pretty too, but the messy hair rock.
Some bokeh bubbles behind it got saved during the edit process. The rest went to the dark side, together with other plants.
Having photographs taken with the thought of editing this way would help a lot. More contrasts with shaded areas and small sunny patches, and the job is basically done.
On the other hand, picking a photo and being able to achieve the least obvious result is way more fun. :)
The overall result is pretty dark and moody, but damn I like it!
I will have to try that with some street photos next.
Bonus monochrome song:
Massive Attack - Safe From Harm
year 1991
Shot with Sony a7R + Carl Zeiss Jena Biotar 50mm f1.4 lens
All photos and text are my own.
