Italy people shots b&w [7]

I was in Porto Venere (last village of Cinque Terre) just Friday,
as I live nearby. Plenty of photo opportunity there.
Wonderful place to live!
Your pictures are very nice, the cup in particular is very nicely
showing Italy to its best (I think I drink 5 or 6 of these a day).
Hehe, you're all adicted to the stuff! But the coffe is very good in almost every little cornershop in Italy, as opposed to here in Norway, where you really have to search to get a good cup.

I saw the shot of the coffe cup with the guy in the background cleaning the espresso machine while I had a cappuccino at a train station on my way from Florence to Cinque Terre.

Thomas.
 
Great shots, I love the composition of all the photos. The tritone
conversion really brings out the best in the pictures. Would you
mind telling us how you achieved this effect?
I do the B&W conversion with Lab, as I think that preserves the tonal graduation best. In PS you go to Image> mode> Lab and then in the 'channel' pallette you take the a and b channel and drag them to the trash icon, deleting them. Then there's only the L (lightness) channel left. The resulting image is good, but often a little light - don't worry, as the tritone will darken it (a lot).

Go to image> mode> grayscale to activate the duotone menu item. Then select image> mode> duotone. Here I picked tritone instead of duotone, then played around picking some orange/brown colors until the result looked good. Then I saved the whole thing as an action.

Now go to image> mode> RGB then you often have t use levels or curves to brighten the image a little, but I like it to be quite dark. I think it suits this type of B&W, and the prints also look better if the original is a little dark, I think.

Glad you liked the images! Please let me know if any steps in the conversion above are unclear.

Thomas.
 
Great job. Very moody to me.
Thanks, I was happy with that one myself. I saw the old gentleman walking with the umbrella towards the Brunelleschi's Cathedral in Florence - so I followed him :-)

This was one of the few shots I got of the church, as it was under restoration with lots of building going on around it. Besides that, I also think it's hard to take images of famous buildings in an original way. This was the closest I got :-)

Thomas.
 
All shots are outstanding. Especially no.3.
Thanks, I also liked the old woman walking down the steps on the side of the church here. That was another old person I followed for a couple of 100 meters before getting a shot I liked :-)
They're just a tiny bit
too dark on my monitor, but it's a matter of taste.
Yeah, I found I want them to be a little dark, as I think it fits the mood and the tritone. I did view these on different monitors at work after posting, and on some of them, the images look a little too dark to me too. On the other hand, the prints look perfect to me - dark, but detailed. Thanks for the feedback on the lightness/darkness, though. It's always good to hear how others see the images. BTW,is your monitor calibrated?

Thomas.
 
Really fantastic shots! Thanks for posting. I was just thinking how
I was getting tired of getting bogged down by all the sophomoric
discussion about which camera is the best... I just wanted to see
some great photos (I sure haven't taken any great ones recently)
and then I saw your post. Wonderful shots!
Thanks! I know, I like reading about new cameras and rumours about new cameras (Iguess that's why I check these forums) but sometimes it gets a little too enthusiastic around here when new models are released - or even more so when new models are just a rumour! :-)

Glad I could brighten your day a little with these Fall shots from Italy!

Thomas.
 
Fine moody shots,no summer in Italy anymore I see....
Well, this was last Fall. We had about 5 days there, and it rained most of the time :-( A bit unlucky, but we made the best out of it, shooting stuff like this when the weather was bad, and getting brighter shots when the sun peaked out. If the weather was too bad, there was always a café or restaurant where we could pass a couple of hours! Oh, and the food stall in the center of Florence provided some great (indoor) shooting opportunities.

Thomas.
 
Thanks, Emeka! I value your opinion, as you post some wonderful shots here on the forums! Most of these had nothing more done to them than developing in NX, then B&W tritone conversion in PS. Some had a little dodging and burning done to them. B&W conversion described here:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1034&message=20775670

It's always exciting with new cameras, but it gets a little too much around here sometimes.

Thomas.
 
I love taking candid street pictures. Those are excellent. simply
excellent
I love street photography too - it's just a little scary sometimes, as I know I might be intimidating people, I feel intimidated myself. Then again, sometimes it just starts to flow, and I get to meet new people as well as getting shots I like.

Thanks for looking!

Thomas.
 
I love #1, 3, and 4. The last one has superb composition, but
there's something about the out-of-focus buildings that bothers me
(I think it's the double lines). Nicely done!
Thanks, I like those a lot too. I love the composition of the last one, but I agrre with you - I would also have wished the rendering to come out slightly different. The 50mm f/1.4 can behave OK, but also draw harsh backgrounds like this one. Fortunatly, in print, the doubled lines don't stand out as clearly, and the shot looks a lot better - it actually made a much better print than I feared!

Thanks for commenting.

Thomas.
 
Nicely done- #4 and #7 really stand out to me.
Thanks! #7 seems to be a shot people like. I also like #4 a lot. It has a good feel to it, and it reminds me of the food market in Florence, as I feel it captured the mood well.

Thomas.
 
Hi, Todd!

I sniped her from the front first with the 70-200VR:



before sneaking after her and getting the posted one where I shot her in the back:



No, but really, old people are great - especially for photography! :-)
You and your shameless stalking of the elderly, Thomas! You would
have had a ball in Siena.
Sounds great, I'll go to Siena next time. You never know when you might go back to Italy... Maybe next Summer? What do you think?

Thomas.
 
Thanks for sharing Tom.

I've just been playing with photoshop with some higher ISO shots ot get them B&W but mine were looking washed out - I'll definitely try this method instead. Great shots by the way!
 
I like 3 and 6 best, and the tritone definitely fits the moodiness of the shots. Thanks for posting your procedure for conversion. I hope to travel to Italy someday, finances and my hubby willing. I truly enjoyed seeing it through your eyes and camera lens.
--
Did you ever stop to think, and then forget to start again?
SueSee
 

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