Fun With Fire

I’ve never been one to try out the cliche photos but boredom can make one do crazy things. So, when I found a huge pack of sparklers available for $2 while I was at Wal-Mart, I decided I would have some fun. Again, I need to thank my girlfriend for helping out and being ever so patient with me while I was doing the photos. And thanks to my mom for being my other assistant. I know these aren’t exactly the best sparkler photos but I think it’s an admirable effort that I thought would help me get used long exposure times on my D3, a camera that because of the my lack of work I haven’t really been able to get as used to as I would like. Also, I think this is the first time I’ve ever dealt with sparklers in terms of photography. So, hope you enjoy and hope this gives you a good thing to go into the weekend with.

To Color or Not to Color?

I present to you the hardest question I have as a photographer when it comes to the post production part of my job. Should I make this picture black and white? Or should I leave that beautiful color in there? I had a friend of mine asking me about this not too long ago and we basically decided that it all comes down to the mood that you’re trying to portray with the photo, at least when it comes to artistic snapshots. Obviously, a sports action photo will retain the same message whether it’s in B&W or color, but a picture of a girl looking out over a field can take on a completely different mood depending on how you decided to run the photo. Let’s look at the colored photo:

Now, as you can see, the color in this photo adds a very nice touch and helps to really show the different kinds of palets are present in the scene. The red and blue dress, the green of the grass, the orange and yellow hue of the sinking sun and the deep blue from the impending storm. And really, in my opinion it’s quite a pretty scene. Now, let’s take a look at the B&W photo of the same scene.

Talk about a mood shift. Not only do we loose that pretty scene and all it’s colors, we look at the photo in a completely different way. Instead of a girl (thanks to my girlfriend Katie for posing for me) taking in the beautiful view, we now see a girl looking out to the small patch of sunny sky and perhaps using it as a metaphor for happy days she hopes are on the way. Really, this was just a quick experiment so there’s no great artistic metaphor to be seen here, but you get my point.

I personally like the B&W photo better. Besides having a bit of a better angle, I think the contrast in the photo is just very nice. But, what do you think, my five or six noble readers? Let me know.