Clouds In Black and White
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I have a lot of fun photographing clouds in black and white. Taking cloud appreciation further from the mundane seems facilitated with the reality perceived in grey tones between the extremes of black and white. I like the added dimension beyond the simile of,,looking “Like” something..to the extra reality of the metaphor..a photo of a cloud elicits or brings me to a new perception, a new feeling,, a new thought,,etc. My black and white photography wanders between the simile and metaphor purposely not easily classified in to one category or another.That is for the mundane world to do.
So I begin, and ask for input as well as your contributions in the field of Black and White Cloud Photography. I believe every one has a unique view of the clouds.
For anyone just beginning in using B&W photography for clouds a few suggestions; Assuming a digital camera, have one that has the option of B&W. Programmable B&W options is even better. I have used the Canon Rebels and now use a Canon 6D. Both have programmable B&W options. By programmable, I mean,,choices. To get the clouds to ” pop” out from the mundane sky, adjustable Contrast is required. Choosing a Yellow filter effect increases contrast, An Orange filter effect gets more contrast and a Red filter gives the most contrast to a picture you are trying to capture. There are degrees of sharpness, contrast, etc etc with each of the Filter effect choices. With use, which choice ,is made to fit the kind of lighting the situation is under. Early morning lighting is not the same as mid day for an example. Thick low stratcumulus offers lighting challenges that high thin cirrus doesn’t. And vis versa. Experience brings knowledge so when shooting clouds try as many choices as possible. I use the Orange filter effect and thus increase my exposure by 2/3 of F stop to adjust for the filter in most general cloud shooting. With experience all the other choices to fit specific situations become a fun playground that eventually brings satisfying results. Be brave to experiment.
A good zoom telephoto lens on your camera is required if you want to have as many choices as possible and exercise the choices in the quick changing environment of cloud photography. My adage is..if you see a great shot, and don’t have the camera in your hands, its too late. A zoom telephoto lens reduces Time to actually taking THE picture.
A good photo processing package is required. Digital photography has a major problem: FOD..Foreign Object Debris. Tiny dust particles, lint, etc etc seem to collect on the glass plate in front of the cmos, the actual chip of pixels. These dust particles create dark spots on the photo. If you have a camera with removable lens option, dslr for example, you will get dust inside your camera. So a processing software package that can remove spots or any unwanted object from the photo is highly recommended. Adobe’s ” Light Room” is an excellent starting package. I have yet to fully explore all the the options . B&W is easily manipulated in Light Room and gets great results in my humble opinion. I also like how it works well with my Apple computer.
Okay, enough of the tutorial. Its up to you to form the relationship between your camera and the clouds. Its a tool that you have to learn to use to get what you want out of the clouds. Try to take 10,000 pictures in one year or two. You will learn a lot about clouds, lighting, and yourself. Have FUN.
A challenging and fun photo of thin altocumulus undulatus:
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MikeL, you have really kick-started the new Forum, and thank you for it.
On B&W, as you know I admire your B&W pix and sometimes term them your Armani mode – your first one above would qualify. But I would ask that you make clear when you are in that mode e.g. your timely and superb opening topic:
is, I believe in colour. But asperatus in particular tends to look monochrome.hygge is point&shoot at best so will stick with colour, I fear.
‘H’
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Hey H, good seeing you found a way to here. I’ve learned to click on ” Cloud Forum” where ever it is and however camouflaged.
Perhaps that is also at the foundation of my B&W photography of clouds. I create under the influence of ” Surrealism” as put forth by A. Breton, Magritte, et al. So, there is an emphasis on How one perceives perhaps more important than What one perceives.
I take pictures of clouds. Thats easy enough. With the advent of modern digital photography,,upgraded every 6 months along with everything else digital, every human now has the potential to be an Ansel Adams..or more preferably , themselves. In creation we find ourselves.
I enjoy ” dupelicatus” cloud because of what they offer, especially in B&W,,digital B&W at that. Multilayer clouds offer a reality of..multi realities. Working the gray tones brings out different facets as one digitally processes the photograph. So the photograph becomes more than a graph of a cloud or clouds. The photograph evolves to a subjective experience ,,that changes as one mentally sinks into it. The success of the photo graph, imho, becomes, how well does it get one mentally traveling..out of the comfort of the mundane and into the unknown. B&W,,digital B&W, offers relative inexpensive freedom to stretch ones mind, to deepen the human experience, to find ones ” self”.
Of course B&W is not limited to that. However, it is how I am exercising the craft. So, there is a freedom in my photographic style that may wish to leverage the viewer out of the box of the mundane,,and thus experience some ” freedom” of their own. Not only to say, clouds look like things,,but to say..they give the visual opportunity to experience beyond oneself,is my hope. B&W is an obvious and easy first step away from one reality. Clouds are perfect metaphors imho.
These photos were taken a day of each other. Is there a common ” Armani” thread connecting them?
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Hi Michael,
Really excellent stuff! I do some research on NLC and a couple of years back cobbled together a piece of kit based on a monochrome low light level cctv camera.
I was interested in trying to determine the scattering properties of the MLC particles.
(they are tiny, a few hundred nanometers in diameter)
Most NLC images show the gorgeous sweeping bluey white shapes and forms.
It gets much more interesting and “3rd reality” as you put it when you image in monochrome.
The video was taken looking a lot higher than most NLC shots (almost but not quite overhead). The NLC were almost invisible to the unaided eye. It reveals the NLC in a whole new way. 82km up, shifting at 65m/s (~147mph) and a lot more ragged than people normally imagine!cheers,
Bill. -
Bill, Thank you very much! That video is a treat since I have no first hand knowledge of NLCs.. I’ve never seen them. The speed is unexpected as well as the texture you mentioned as being ragged. The almost overhead perspective is unique to me as well. Fantastic view! That there is enough up there at that height to push those tiny particles around amazes me. Thanks Again!
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Hi Michael,
You are welcome. Monochrome imaging is quite an art. I don’t know if you’re of an age to remember when film was the medium used but IR film and appropriate filters could produce some amazing results.
Unless one is extremely brave and removes the IR blocking filter at lot of really good imaging effects are actually lost in standard DSLR imaging. The silicon in the detectors can be used out to over 1000nm, actually longer than most IR film but of course modifying the camera “ruins” it for everything else. (Mind you that depends on ones perspective!)Anyway NLC’s are very close to my heart. I’ve been observing them as an amateur since I first saw them in 1986 then as a “pro” whilst a postgrad in the mid 90’s. (I don’t know what the official CAS protocol is, but I hope nobody objects to a plug for another forum. I’m one of the admin team on the NLC observers forum at http://nlcnet.proboards.com/
This is usually very active from May through to August and is the forum for the NLCNET site mentioned by hygge)One of the intruiging possibilities about the NLC formation process is that meteoric ions are responsible. They are at the correct height and can be blown on very high speed winds.
So, if you think the last speed was fast have a look at this time lapse video I made from a series of stills.The images were taken from the observatory at Izana on Tenerife. The meteor flashes in the first frame and the decomposed remains are seen to drift from top right towards the centre left. Using some geometry I determined the wind speed to be 139m/s. Thats 499kph/310mph. This is up there with the fastest winds ever recorded!
However with the low atmospheric density and extremely low pressure it wouldn’t even rustle your hair; provided you lived long enough to think about it…. ;-)cheers,
Bill. -
MikeL, I keep coming back to your beautiful opening shot in this topic, but it worries me you call it undulatus – I would have thought it is a classic lenticularis (hence orographic), better than much in the literature?
And while I am here, since you have never seen NLC (I guess it would not be expected at the latitude of Az) how did your topic get the tag ‘NLC noctilucent clouds monochrome imaging’? From you, from Bill, automatic? Are multiple tags merged into the one we see?
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Hygge, Ahh that is a good question on the ” Armani” shot. I stopped at ” undulatus” because that group of cloud was remembered to be more of ” wisp”, thin tendrils, than substantial lenticular. I imagine I would get the same kind of question if I had called them lenticular.As you may notice, on the left there is already signs of deterioration. So,what you see is as about as substantial as they got. At that,a bit of processing to bring out more grey tones, gives the wisps more body than the eye perceived originally. Perhaps that relates to Bill’s comment about the use of IR film in cloud/landscape photography. The digital cmos ” sees” further into the infra red and ultra violet than the human eye. Canon makes a R version of its 6D camera that is sold for the astronomy buffs .It is designed for capturing the infra red wave lengths lighting up far distant targets. So, there are ways of altering the ” seen” for what ever purpose and outcome. And true, it can make identifying difficult.
I had not noticed tag but I have removed it for this post. So many things to have to pay attention to.
Attached is another example of transitory cloud. I want to call it a cumulus humilis literally exploding into a congestus. I caught this from my backyard, as it happened just south of overhead. Palm tree is for scale. And yes, contrast was heightened.
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Digital Stitching doesn’t have to be just for landscape shots…Take a photo. Save it. Then take same photo,,flip it. Save it (preferably to Desk Top ). Then take the left and the right version and ” photo stitch” them together..
Two examples:
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