Back to Cheating

 This weekend it was still raining cats and dogs (I know, I just stepped in a poodle) but the Alex Meixner Band was back to rock the local folk fest. Although I wanted to do more film work, I also wanted to save my remaining roles of BW400CN for other things, so out came the D2x and 80-200mm lens.

The lighting at the show was a mix of ambient light from the side of the tent, and white lamps mounted near the ceiling. The pictures I took in colour were uninspiring. The colours were muted and the overall feel lacked punch.

So, out came the B/W conversion tools built into Lightroom. After conversion of a few I felt they were much better, so I converted all of them to Black and White. Here are two of my favourite shots.

By the way, if you look up Alex on youtube, his live shows are much better than his CDs. He really interacts with the audience and gets them going.

Come on and Join the Vertigo

Same story as above, a colour converstion, shot with the F5 and a 17mm lens, giving that slightly fisheye effect. 

Parking garage staircase near where I work.

Conversion

Sometimes band members would go shirtless while on stage, doubtless it's hot as heck under so many lights, and that red quickly blows out details. So Black and White conversion to the rescue! Details, such as the intricate ink on his chest, are retained, while still giving the sense of emotion that the red lights brought.

Rise Up

As I have said in the past, I'[m not a fan of Photo-shopping my pictures, much preferring to show them as taken, warts and all. I'm a firm believer that the more you get right in the camera, the less you have to do after the fact.

Here is a shot I converted to Black and White, the Rhythm Guitarist was performing a sound check before they went live, and originally bathed in deep blue light. My Nikon D2x can shoot in pure Black and White mode, but at the time I didn't want to miss any shots, so it was done in colour. I feel the image is better this way, so here it is.  

Conversion

I'd forgotten to pack any Kodak BW400CN film, so I coverted this shot to Black and White in PhotoShop. Taken pretty much after all the fog was gone.

A Different View

Going on a short vacation means (to me anyway) a tradeoff on the amount of gear one can carry. In this case, I left my film gear home, not expecting the wonderfully foggy day I had, so this shot was converted to Black and White. The conversion process is never as exact as when shooting with a real film camera, but it works well enough for this shot.