For my second focal black and white photo, perhaps I’ve gone a little cliché, but I chose this male northern cardinal hidden away in the shrubs in my backyard. Cardinals provide some much needed color around here during those so dreary winter days.
My cardinal is not in the best focus here, but I still thought it made an interesting shot.
About a week ago, Robin over at Breezes at Dawn, kindly invited me to participate in the Black and White Photo Challenge. As I’m sure my regular readers know, I find black and white photography difficult because, for me, photography is so very much about the color. This is part of the reason I accepted Robin’s invitation, because it would be a true challenge for me. The “rules” of the challenge are quite simple:
1.On 5 consecutive days, create a post using either a past or recent photo in black and white.
2.Each day invite another blogging friend to join in the fun.
As I’ve often been known to do when it comes to blogging challenges or photo assignments, I like to find a way to make them my own. In a couple of Robin’s posts for this challenge she used a technique that selectively colors one small area of a black and white photo. Robin explained to me this technique is actually called “focal black and white”. It is something I’ve been meaning to try for a while now, and as it often the case, just never got around to it. I had a feeling in a cool editing program like Lightroom, there had to be a way to do it. I searched, I discovered, I tried!
So, for my black and white challenge, it will actually be a “focal black and white” challenge. I’ve chosen 5 photos to present in black and white with a pop of color somewhere in the shot for emphasis and fun. I will post one photo each day this week, Monday through Friday, starting today.
As far as inviting blogging friends, just as Robin did, I am inviting anyone who would like to join in to please do so! Maybe even make yours a “focal black and white” challenge if you’re interested in giving it a try.
Here is my first photo that I tried this technique on:
This is my daughter Meghan and her ballroom partner Brandon at a ballroom competition that I attended (and took LOTS of photos of and fully intended to blog about, but have yet to do so, **sigh**) last weekend. I thought the intense look on Meghan’s face with just the red lips was a good place to give this technique a try.
Last weekend, the women of my immediate family and I had the pleasure of spending the weekend together on Cape Cod. My mother lives there and my sister, two daughters and I drove down to visit. We had two birthdays to celebrate as well – Meghan’s 20th, which occured a couple weeks ago and my mother’s (age politely not included here) which happens tomorrow. As always we enjoyed laughter and each other’s company. It was also an opportunity for me to spend some time getting to know my 85mm lens!
I tried a couple of candid portrait shots without my daughters’ knowledge. I adjusted these a little in Lightroom. I like the fine but soft detail on their faces.
The weather was still quite chilly, but thankfully not raining or snowing. We visited snow-covered Smuggler’s Beach in South Yarmouth.
Meghan and Sarah took the opportunity to have their first-ever snowball fight at the beach. I appreciated the stop-action in these shots.
Can you see the snowball Meghan is tossing in the air here, ready to chuck it at her sister?
I found a couple bird photos to add to my collection (probably no surprise to regular readers here)
Gull against a winter sky
I have not been able to identify this duck yet, but I found it very interesting. Any thoughts about what he or she might be?
And a group shot of our bundled up crew:
From left to right: me, Meghan, Sarah (wearing her Totoro hooded sweatshirt, complete with ears!), my mother, my sister Jennifer.
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