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The Art of Black & White Photography |
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| 16th September 2011: Blackpool, UK | Price: £145 |
The Art of Black and White Photography, a one-day intensive workshop on Friday 16th September, will enable you to create aesthetically stunning and technically optimal black and white images.
It will focus on:
- How best to convert your images to black and white.
- Combining conversion techniques and selectively altering tonal range and contrast.
- Creating stunning black and white portraits.
- Adding a unique and compelling tone to your black and white images.
During this workshop we will explore each of these topics in turn, concentrating on developing the skills your need in order to create stunning black and white images of your own.
There are just sixteen places available on this workshop!
Examples of the kind of images you will be able to create by the end of the workshop are included below: just hover your mouse over each image (or the 'show the original' link beneath them) to see the original.
Alternatively, take a look at Dave's blog or galleries for some further examples. As with the images below, hover your mouse over the 'show the original' link beneath each one to compare the original and post-processed version.
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Course description
Since the first black and white photograph was produced by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce in 1826, using a bitumen covered pewter plate, black and white photography has remained enduringly popular: and to this day it is still the preferred medium of many professional and amateur photographers as it can be used to produce simple, yet stunningly beautiful and striking images. With black and white photography an image is reduced to nothing more than form and tonal range: the interplay of light and dark against a backdrop of varying shapes and textures. As Andri Cauldwell (an American photographer) once stated, "To see in color is a delight for the eye but to see in black and white is a delight for the soul".
Since the introduction of digital cameras and image processing, black and white photography has lost nothing of its popularity, but the skills you need to create a stunning black and white image have changed. Now, rather than loading your camera with black and white film (and then enhancing the tonal range and contrast in the darkroom), creating a black and white image from a digital negative requires an additional, crucial step: you need to convert your original colour image to black and white.
In this intensive one-day workshop we begin at that point, with an in-depth exploration of eight techniques that you can use to convert your photographs to black and white. We will discuss which techniques are most useful and powerful, when you should use one technique rather than another, and which techniques to avoid.
From there we will move on to discuss how best to combine different conversion techniques and how to selectively alter the tonal range and balance of specific areas of an image, how to work with portraits (which present a number of unique challenges), and how to tone your black and white images. By the end of the workshop you will be able to create compelling black and white images of your own.
What to bring
Your laptop, Photoshop CS† or above (and a basic familiarity of how to use it), and a range of RAW files.
†Please note that the Black and White tool – one of the black and white conversion techniques we will be working with during the morning session – was introduced with Photoshop CS3.
Venue & Accommodation
This workshop will take place in the conference facilities at the Savoy, a three star hotel located on Blackpool's North Shore, close to the town's many attractions. The hotel offers complimentary wi-fi and will provide morning and afternoon coffee, and lunch. For further details regarding the hotel please take a look at this page.
Schedule
In the first half of the morning session, working with a variety of different images, we will explore eight techniques you can use to convert your images to black and white, comparing and contrasting the strengths and weaknesses of each: the Hue/Saturation tool and Desaturate command (and why you shouldn't use them), the Calculations method, converting to black and white in Lab Color mode, how to create a black and white image using a Gradient Map, the Channel Mixer, the Black and White tool, and how to convert an image to black and white during the RAW conversion process.
Having discussed these techniques we will move on to take a more detailed look at the Channel Mixer the Black and White tool - two of Photoshop's most powerful and flexible black and white conversion tools - and how you can use them to alter the tonal balance and tonal range of an image to create both technically optimal and aesthetically stunning images.
From there we will begin our discussion of how to blend one or more conversion techniques to create a more effective image, and how to make selective adjustments to specific areas of an image using adjustment layers and masks).
We will have a coffee break at 10.45am and will conclude the session at 12.30pm when we break for lunch.
In the first part of the afternoon session we will conclude our discussion of selectively enhancing an image, before moving on to take a detailed look at black and white portraiture. Specifically, we will be working through how to minimize or accentuate skin tones and skin detail, how to emphasize a subject's eyes, and how to delineate a subject from their background.
In the final section of this workshop we will work through a variety of techniques you can use to tone your black and white: from adding a uniform tone (e.g. sepia), through how to split-tone an image (a common toning technique in film-based black and white photography), to how to use a variety of tools within Photoshop to create unique and complex tones that will really bring your black and white images to life.
For both the morning and afternoon sessions you can work with either your own images or a set of example images, chosen to illustrate and explore these various techniques.
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Blackpool will be hosting the World Fireworks Championships during September, an event that boasts some of the most spectacular firework displays in the world. The second display of the competition starts at 8.30pm on this Friday evening, and normally takes place on Blackpool's North Pier, just a ten minute stroll from the hotel, so David and Craig will be coordinating an informal shoot of the event. David was commissioned to photograph the competition in 2006 so will be able to show you how to get some great shots of this event (you can see a larger version of one of his shots by clicking the thumbnail to the right). Just make sure you bring your tripod and camera and we'll send you some further details nearer the time. Blackpool's famous Illuminations will also be lit over the weekend, so after the firework display we'll be able to take a walk along the prom to photograph them. |
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The Chromasia Team
Dave will be running the workshop and Libby will ensure that the event runs smoothly. You can find out more about both of them on the about page.
Additionally, Dave will be assisted by Craig Judd (right).
Craig, a freelance photographer based in Poole (Dorset), taught City and Guilds Photography for the De-Havilland College in Welwyn Garden City, and was Head Photographic Technician for the University of Hertfordshire and the St Albans College of Art and Design. He studied PQE photography at Plymouth and gained a Distinction in 1991. He subsequently went on to Assist Bill Morton in London, and then freelanced for Finnemore and Field in Edgeware.
Since then he has continued to pursue a variety of photographic techniques and topics, all of which are expressed on his popular website id7.co.uk and blog id7.co.uk/iblog.
Book now
The cost of this workshop is £145.00, which must be paid in full before the 5th of August (or £195.00 if you would like to stay at the Savoy hotel on the night of the 15th). Just click the 'Pay Now' button below to pay a £50.00 deposit to reserve your place.
This price includes lunch and refreshments during the workshop.
Just click the 'Pay Now' button below to reserve your place.
Please note that in booking a place on one of our training workshops you acknowledge that you understand and agree to our terms and conditions.
Further information
If you have any questions about this workshop please contact Libby for further information on this or any of our other training events. Alternatively, if you can't make it over to Blackpool on these dates, you may be interested in our online Photoshop tutorials, our one-to-one training, or some of the other training events we have planned for the future.
