The Eye » Black & White

Shooting On King Street, Charleston

Eyebee — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 19:32:09 +0000

When I started taking photos as a young boy, it was with a Kodak Brownie B, which took a roll of 626 film. 8 shots. I would get ONE film for a week’s vacation. It was 2-3 weeks allowance to get it processed, and it took 7-10 days to come back, after I’d dropped it into the local pharmacy.

I used to wish I could have color, but that was too expensive to buy, let alone develop.

Then I got my first film SLR, a Minolta XG1. I had that camera 20 years. Strange thing was, that although I could now afford color, I used to love to shoot Black & White. There are, of course, ways to manipulate Black & White that you simply cannot do with Color.

I used to get a 64 ASA (ISO) black & white slide film, quite often.

I still have all those slides, and one day, I’ll get around to getting them digitized.

Now, with my DSLR (Canon Rebel XSi, or 450D to Europeans, and those in the UK), I shoot everything in color, and post process some in Photoshop to black and white.

To get the best results,I don’t simply use the monochrome option on the camera, nor just de-saturate the color image. Both of those options are one way destructive. I work with RAW files, and use adjustment layers to end up with a high quality black and white jpeg.

That way I still have the original color RAW file. I also save the PSD, particularly if I’ve used a few steps to get to the result, so I can re-produce the image again if I wish.

I’m not a professional photographer, this is (aside from photographs I take for web-site work), simply a hobby that I enjoy.

If I had bottomless pockets I would no doubt carry around a few thousand dollars worth of equipment, but, like most people, I haven’t.

Still, one can even get excellent results from some of the higher end Point & Shoot cameras out there these days, so it’s not imperative to have a back pack full of gear to get some decent photographs.

Shooting On King Street, Charleston is a post from: The Eye An Eyebeemania Blog

Walmer Lifeboat

Eyebee — Thu, 15 May 2008 02:41:25 +0000

Walmer is situated on the east Kent coast a few miles north of Dover, England.

At one time the area had 3 lifeboats, but these days Walmer is an inshore lifeboat station with semi-rigid inflatable craft. Dover and Ramsgate lifeboat stations take care of the treacherous Goodwin Sands.

The photograph shows the Charles Dibdin (Civil Service No 32). I took this photograph in July 1969, while on vacation in the area.

The boat was named for Charles Dibdin (4 March 1745 – 25 July 1814). Charles was an English musician, dramatist, novelist, actor and songwriter. He wrote numerous patriotic sea-songs, which did wonders for the national spirit, and which were used by the Royal Navy while they were at war with France in the early 1800′s.

The Government of the day, under William Pitt, went so far as to pay him to write such songs.

The boat itself saved 115 lives, and in 1977 it was gifted to Eastbourne, in East Sussex.

Here are a couple more links to show the lifeboat

http://www.eastkent.freeuk.com/walmer/walmer_lifeboat.htm

http://eastbournernli.org.uk/images/CharlesDibden.jpg

Walmer Lifeboat is a post from: The Eye An Eyebeemania Blog