This image was a bit of a surprise. Â I liked what I saw through the viewfinder as a color image, however, when I opened the file in Lightroom, I began to play with it as a monochromatic version. Â The surprise was how much I liked it as a b&w conversion. Â My initial thinking was, I’m in the Smokies, an awesome place to photograph early spring color. Â Why on earth would I want to try b&w? Â The lesson learned once again is, b&w is simply a choice and one that should be made with purpose, regardless of subject matter. Â
A note on the processing. Â Ninety percent of this image was processed in Lightroom 5 with just a few minor tweaks in Photoshop to finish it off. Â
[Tweet “Smoky Mountain B&W from Cades Cove”]
John, this is lovely. I love color but there is something magical about black and white.
love the black and white. The dogwoods just pop right off the page. It really says spring and rebirth as opposed to drab winter colors that the b&w trees portray. Does that make sense?
Dogwoods…..I just love them. I grew up in the Catskills and my dad planted them in our yard. We moved to Texas and they were prolific in East Texas. Since I moved to ND I have not seen them and I miss this beautiful harbinger of spring! Thank you for the memory and this lovely image.
I love it!!! The image has a good range of tones and the Dogwood is the perfect eye catcher. Wish I was there.
Darn John. That’s so good it looks like I took it. Hope you are having a great workshop!
Bill, this made me laugh out loud.
Even as a b/w this has a delicate painterly effect. Beautifully done.
Just getting that color noise out, as Cole would say.
Lovey delicate image!
Great image and great processing. Who knew Lightroom was so powerful 🙂
Thank you for the kind comments. We are having a GREAT time here. Hate for it to end.
John:
Love this image. It is wonderful.
Joe
Thanks Joe.
Love the image! What a place! Great to have choices. I can imagine the color and the b&w is awesome!
I recall growing up and only having a b&w TV. Wasn’t until my senior year in high school to have a color TV. Would be great to have a b&w TV again!
The world is great visualizing and presenting it in b&w! Continued success with your workshop!
Very Ansel Adams like…Beautiful image-:}
High praise Linda, thank you.
Blue filter? Outstanding touch bossman. Using LR a lot for bw these days, too.
Thanks Tony.
I like this shot very much, John. Really lovely. Just curious…were there any turkeys in this area?
Not a turkey you might eat Janice… 🙂
You vision never fails to amaze me! You SEE the potential when I just pass it by. This may be one of my favorite of your images! How fortunate I feel to share the journey with you!
Thank you Louise. Trust me I miss as much as you do. We simply “see” differently. I love your vision.
Wonderful contrast between all of the different leaves. Love it John!
Thank you Nick.
The conversion to black and white turns this into a very magical image. Having seen this place, I can’t imagine a color version being better than this.
Thank you Rich. Great to have you along on this tour. Love to introduce folks to my beloved Smoky Mountains.
That’s an awesome picture, John. Mimi
Thank you Mimi! 🙂 Hugs to you and Donna.