The Gift of Light

After almost ten days of clouds and snow ( and sparking the mini-debate on global warming on my previous post) we finally had a brief break in the clouds for a few hours on our way through Antarctica. It was mid-day, with colorless, drab light: hopeless in color, but almost perfect for a black-and-white conversion. Even a small spot of light can add enough contrast to make a b&w work – here made by simply dropping out saturation and adding contrast to the image. (The color information is retained in the RAW version should I need to go back to it)

I had hoped to have many more opportunities for this kind of image, but the eternal clouds and resulting flat light just didn’t translate into good black and whites. Maybe next time.

In the meantime, I will have to content myself with finding black and white images in the snowy mountains a little closer to home. It is a terrific way to make the most out of light that otherwise might not look like much in color.

Nikon D3, 70-200mm lens, manual  Photoshop B&W conversion