It's all in Black and White

One of the things as a railfan I like to do is take pictures, and lot's of them sometimes I get really bored with taking pictures especially when I had the chance to learn about a medium that most of us have somewhat abandoned in the modern railroad photography era. I work our local art museum and we had the dream exhibit of O. Winston Link and seeing the work he did as a Photographer was epic to say the least and getting a book of his work only fueled  the fire. Today my blog is about not only turning your photos into black and white but some of the things that has worked well for me to add drama to a otherwise boring picture.

Here is the original in Color

For the most part the picture above is a good one in my opinion but why would I mess with it? Well just imagine if it was 1952 instead of 2014 and color cameras did not exist yet or was too expensive for the average person to even fathom owning.

Black and White Version

Notice the stark contrast to the first picture?  Kind of makes a interesting difference doesn't it ? Well not only can you do this to any picture in editor by removing all saturation but if you turn your Cameras settings to either or Black and White or Monochrome you could make a ordinary picture extraordinary.

Here is Q352 notice how the Smoke is accented

Sometimes when you take out the color other details show up like the smoke above details that would be lost to the other vibrant colors in the picture. Other details also become apparent like the locomotives number boards, and it also adds a sense of history to the picture.

Rainy or poor weather? turn it grey-scale

Sometimes if you are like me you shoot in any weather and not all your pictures come out the way you planned or sometimes the grey sky takes away from the colors or vise-versa and turning it to Black and White cleans it up and add a Black and white foreign NS unit on the CSX and Boom you have the sense of awesome that few can achieve.

Got a steam locomotive? You Know

 Every Year they bring my favorite girl over the NKP 765 and while shooting in color makes it great sometimes I like to make it look like a old picture this one was taken up in Berea Ohio in 2012.
Sometimes you see something that captures the moment in time  but a color picture just cant define it the next three pictures below depict what I hope to explain in a well versed way

A Lantern and a flag

While this picture was taken in color it just did not have the impact I was looking for, having the conductor turn the light on and shooting it in grey scale makes one ask the question, where is this train headed? Or it adds the drama of the frustrations railroading.

One can make history relive

One of the things that worked well when I took this picture was it being winter and most of the vegetation was off the old coaling tower and the old 50ft Seaboard gondola helped bring out the picture to make one at least ponder of what could have been

Reflections of the times

 While the final picture reflects the somberness of what could have been or what was the history of railroading reflecting in a fresh rain puddle from a recent summer storm could it be the puddle of tears from locomotives or railroaders that have been around when railroading was in the golden era?
While shooting in Black and White has become somewhat a normal thing it is a great medium to try with the subject of railroading as the back drop.
I hope you  enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it and remember God is still in control

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