Sometimes, I just want Black and White...for C&C

[IzzieK]

1 Getting off a port -- Amber Cove -- was developed by Carnival Cruise Lines. It is a beautiful island, rich in culture. most people here speaks Spanish. When we got down the ship, we were inundated with photographers with props wanting to take pictures of everyone. I preferred to go further to take a shot of the two ships in one shot. One photographer said, you take my picture and I will take yours. Immediately I got cocky and ask him what version of camera does he have...we seem to have the same brand. He said, 610. I told him mine is a D810 and I prefer to be on my side of the camera that is why I have it...and I do not want anyone touching my camera. I think because of this incident with this photographer no photographer bothered with us anymore since then.

Note: I acted like so because this is the second port we got down to and the hawkers some cruise forums described was people selling you goodies and shoving it up your face. Now I realized in our cruise, these photographers are the "hawkers" they were talking about, having encountered these same of them on the ship and now the second time on getting off port.

On edit at Nik's, I added a little bit of coffee tone for a bit of nostalgic feeling and burnt all edges. 1/160 sec at F16 24mm focal length, spot metering.



2 Anyway, moving on...we came upon this view...I think it is nice so I took it. I think this is too contrasty for comfort...EXIF for those that cannot see it are 1/160 sec @F 16, ISO 200, same data as above.



3 Moving on further...another scene... I added hard contrast on this one...plus a few more bits and pieces at Silver EFEX, same settings as above.



4 And the last one in this set, the road to the entrance of Amber Cove...same settings as #3.



5

[chauncey]

The vistas aren't really my cup of tea Izzie, but damn, they are stellar conversions...well done.

[rtbaum]

#1 for me, Izzie. I think the space between ships leads my eye down the dock.

I had a similar reaction to the photographers, I simply pointed my camera at them and started snapping.......they went away. I did have opportunity to talk to a couple of them in more sedate settings, they work very hard for very little.

[Wavelength]

Nice set of images, again. You had great time there, i hope

[NorthernFocus]

Hi, Izzie. I like the first one and last one best for the stories they tell.

[LePetomane]

Izzie, I like #1.

[bnnrcn]

#1 for me too Isabel I think the shadows need lifting a bit .

[Dave Humphries]

+1 to Binnur's assessment.

I also think the contrast in #1 and #2 is a bit too far, I'd lift the dark areas in both.

As compositions; #1 works best as Randy said, but #2 is almost as good, ideally I'd have taken a large sidestep to the right, so the pile and boat were just a bit more centred in the triangular 'hole' formed by the ships hawsers, bow and jetty.

#3 and #4 are certainly useful to help orient myself as to the layout of Amber Cove, but I don't find there's as much to them as the first two.

HTH, Dave

[Geoff F]

These mostly look reasonable to me, Izzie.

Normally, I would have found the dark tones in #1 to be unacceptable but in this case I rather like the way those gloomy ship sides lead to light at the end of the quay. So instead of lightening the shadows I wonder about slightly darkening the bright superstructure on the right side ship to create a deliberate bit of gloomy foreground. Possibly tone down the first cloud a little. So the end result looks a bit like using a vignette on the scene.

Those shadows in the second image are a fraction on the dark side and without any detail. Would selectively lightening those areas before conversion make a difference?

#3 looks good with another scene of a long walk to the end of the quay. I wonder about a very slight crop from the bottom and right side? Maybe keep the end of the diagonal shadow area in the bottom right corner. Which I suppose will mean losing the tugs on that side but they are only partly visible now. I'm thinking that would reduce the impact of that heavy rope and lessen sideways distraction to concentrate more on the far distance. But that is just a very minor thought.

The last doesn't really work for me. A nice idea but I find all those heavy ropes in the foreground to be distracting.

[joebranko]

All are very nice, but #1 is my fave!

[Shadowman]

Nice series and good to know info on the ports.

[John 2]

Interesting story backed up well by the images Izzie. Got to agree though that the shadows are a bit blocked in all of them. However, under those lighting conditions, you were always going to have a battle on your hands and doing something about it in PP is almost impossible. Tried balancing up the first image but I couldn't get it to look natural. Nos. 1 and 2 for me in terms of composition. Hope you had a good holiday and survived the food overload.

[IzzieK]

#1 for me, Izzie. I think the space between ships leads my eye down the dock.

I had a similar reaction to the photographers, I simply pointed my camera at them and started snapping.......they went away. I did have opportunity to talk to a couple of them in more sedate settings, they work very hard for very little.

Thanks for the comments, William...my purpose in the shot is to show my audience what we saw and the path to the gates of Grand Turk, to show the scenes along the way. There are just so many stuffs around so I when I loaded it up in Camera Raw, on pressing the ALT button on sharpening amount (third icon from the selection bar), I saw how it looks like in Black and White and thought..."Why not?"

Randy...as I asked for your guidance in the PM when I was researching our cruise trip, I did not expect seeing photographers as hawkers...so I was quite surprised. I thought the hawkers mentioned would be similar when we did a pass through to Mexico via our vehicle where kids and adults jumped at your car door and shove stuff to your face. This was a different experience. In some forums that I was browsing about before the trip, I learned the same thing you said here but it had skipped my mind. I should have been more tolerant. I am sorry...truly I am...I will be on our next trip to Lake Horn.

Thanks to you both for commenting. The infos were very helpful.

[IzzieK]

Nice set of images, again. You had great time there, i hope

I enjoyed the twice a day work-out at the front of the ship on Deck 11 for sure...at least we can see where we are going and what the temperature really was. I would recommend taking even just a short cruise trip to everyone. For women, it is time to be spoiled and not have to do any cooking at all or tidying the bedroom each day. The buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner comes with the fare with so much choices, it can be entertaining just picking up something to eat each time. There are about 5 swimming pools and hot tubs up front and back the ship and lots of entertainment for the kids. We barely see any children around but they are there. More shots to follow...

Thanks for passing by and commenting.

[IzzieK]

#1 for me too Isabel I think the shadows need lifting a bit .

Dear Dan, Paul David and Binnur -- 'Appreciate your choices. As I had already explained, I was just showing there what we saw as we passed by on the way to the gate of Grand Turk.

[IzzieK]

+1 to Binnur's assessment.

I also think the contrast in #1 and #2 is a bit too far, I'd lift the dark areas in both.

When I come back properly within two weeks I will do a proper edit of those. I was actually trying for the scene with the clouds in between the ships. A 1600 pix version cannot zoom in much even if I had lightened those darker part while editing. Sorry.

As compositions; #1 works best as Randy said, but #2 is almost as good, ideally I'd have taken a large sidestep to the right, so the pile and boat were just a bit more centred in the triangular 'hole' formed by the ships hawsers, bow and jetty.

Thanks for the assessment of #1. I really liked that shot so I have done some more on another scene where both ships were Carnivals side-by-side on port. Will upload that shots later...pooters are being taken away today...(and more medical appoints on the way too for follow up check-ups). I have a shot of the one you wanted--but I thought it was too centered on the triangle so I uploaded this one...will look for it later for upload...

#3 and #4 are certainly useful to help orient myself as to the layout of Amber Cove, but I don't find there's as much to them as the first two.

HTH, Dave

Correct! Just heat and clouds and people. I have more of the insides of Amber Cove later on when I go to Bill's pooter later on in the day. I have loaded what I had edited last night (no, I did not watch the debate...) in a stick drive. I got one of those 200GB ones recently.

Thanks for the shot by shot assessment. You are softening up on me. I better get something you can criticized me hard for later from my file to get you going.

[IzzieK]

These mostly look reasonable to me, Izzie.

Normally, I would have found the dark tones in #1 to be unacceptable but in this case I rather like the way those gloomy ship sides lead to light at the end of the quay. So instead of lightening the shadows I wonder about slightly darkening the bright superstructure on the right side ship to create a deliberate bit of gloomy foreground. Possibly tone down the first cloud a little. So the end result looks a bit like using a vignette on the scene.

I was actually trying to find the drama on the tones of the shading Geoff...thanks for firing up my thoughts. I did lighten the shades a little bit but it doesn't really show in a 1600px or was this 1200...I usually tried to gravitate on these two sizes for uploads here unlike in other forums where one can submit NEF files...

Those shadows in the second image are a fraction on the dark side and without any detail. Would selectively lightening those areas before conversion make a difference?

Yes...I think it would. That is actually how I do my workflow, doing the editing before the conversion but just having a peek via the sharpening area of Camera Raw first. As I had mentioned holding down the ALT key while pressing the mouse button enables one to quickly see if an image will look good in black and white than colour.

#3 looks good with another scene of a long walk to the end of the quay. I wonder about a very slight crop from the bottom and right side? Maybe keep the end of the diagonal shadow area in the bottom right corner. Which I suppose will mean losing the tugs on that side but they are only partly visible now. I'm thinking that would reduce the impact of that heavy rope and lessen sideways distraction to concentrate more on the far distance. But that is just a very minor thought.

Good idea! I was sort of thinking the same way but I thought not losing the bits of rope will help in the understanding that we are just on our way to the gate of the port. The actual reason for the black and white was to lessen the sunlight effect which is too brightening an obvious. I shot wide on all my shots having used only one lens, the 24-135mm Tamron I bought recently before our trip, then crop a little. I had both the P&S and my D810 and my mule wasn't too happy carrying my gear.

The last doesn't really work for me. A nice idea but I find all those heavy ropes in the foreground to be distracting.

When I come back properly to this forum in a week or two I will try to upload really good ones I took a shot of. I am really cramming up my uploads hence the quick edits. 'Promise to do better next time...

Thank you very much for your inputs here. I do appreciate it very much...

[IzzieK]

Nice series and good to know info on the ports.

Thanks Joe and John (Shadowman) for passing by and commenting. I do appreciate your inputs too.

[IzzieK]

Interesting story backed up well by the images Izzie. Got to agree though that the shadows are a bit blocked in all of them. However, under those lighting conditions, you were always going to have a battle on your hands and doing something about it in PP is almost impossible. Tried balancing up the first image but I couldn't get it to look natural. Nos. 1 and 2 for me in terms of composition. Hope you had a good holiday and survived the food overload.

Thanks John for your comments...I will will try to do better uploads once my pooters come back. We are changing internet provider this week and both my pooters needed those upgrades. C drive on the laptop is down to 49GBs. ; need more room too for operating system in desktop, etc. I am thinking it might even be better if I buy the proper whole computer than upgrading but I haven't gone to that road yet so while I am thinking and researching, my pooters are running out of space.

My absence here wasn't just because of the holiday, mate...other things too. But the vacation was good. It was our wedding anniversary week and was feted by the crew of the ship with singing and dancing incorporated in the dining room "showtime!" ---I did not expect that so I didn't bring my cameras with me. I have never been sorry in my entire year 2016! No food overload and if at one time or the other I overload on lobsters (my waiter spoiled me...) and the NY steaks, I got it off from going to the gym twice a day.

I will do better next time...when I got my pooters back. 'Appreciate your critiques on each of them.

[madcrow]

For just showing they are very good. Looking forward to seeing the rest of your images. Hope you had a great time.