It’s fun to go back through all your old photos to experiment to see what works in black and white. Here’s some more photos from 1986 on. I think it’s better when getting some artwork together for your home to think about them as a group to create a cohesive theme especially if they’re going to be in the same room.
In this group, I do want to put some together and decided to do some ocean themed ones, real Europe from 1986 so the images aren’t fantastic but they look old, plastic food covering over lasagna as abstracts and one more of my leaves.
Here I’ve focused on lines, perspective and contrast.
Panoramic from 2014, Kings Park, Perth. Love the three different sections. All I did was take the bugs out of the water and put it in greyscale and adjust the levels in Photoshop.Storm at the 12 Apostles, Great Ocean Road, Victoria. While putting it in black and white doesn’t do the show the intensity of the storm as well as the colour version, I think the contrast will look fantastic from a distance. A good question to ask when choosing photos is, “Is this photo only going to be seen from a distance or up close as well?” You might be able to get away with a slightly blurry photo if it’s only viewed from a distance. Are some of your photos from the best trips or days of your life? Here at the end of Bruny Island, Tasmania, I didn’t capture the amazing roughness of waves in this photo but going out on a boat tour for a few hours was the best day I’ve ever had on a boat. The guides were so funny and the view was incredible. The seals and seaweed are unique to this area.Another Bruny Island image. I made this one a bit darker to highlight the sun and silhouette. The waves were getting calmer as we headed back to base. Highly recommend the day trip to Bruny Island.The staircase in the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Those steps are so well worn and awesome. If you’ve had the pleasure of going up or down them, you’ll know this photo is almost to scale! I love how Valentina Fussell from House of Valentina has beautiful art in her bathroom. She’s had me thinking what art would I put in my bathroom. A photo of the Roman Baths of course. Yeah, I stayed on topic with this one. May as well have a photo of the most beautiful baths in the world there. Whenever I see a photo of the baths, the smell, atmosphere, warmth and mist come back to me even though I haven’t been there since 1986. I’ve played around with a few of our photos of Bath. I love the arch in this one.Don’t we all love looking up at tall buildings? I’ve taken out the drain pipes and it’s another one from 1986. Obviously these old photos could have been taken at any time after the camera was invented so I’m giving myself a pass on the quality. These 1986 images were all scanned so there were blemishes to erase but they probably add to the vintage look of them. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.Autumn in…Melbourne, Australia but you didn’t know that right? I think I’ll stick a few Australian scapes in with the European ones as the architecture is similar. I love how the skies are fairly light to make the focal points pop.Here’s one you may not want to see first thing in the morning. I put the two options of the same photo together as I couldn’t decide which one I liked better. It’s condensation on plastic wrap over the lasagna I took out of the fridge. I take photos of bubbles, swirls in the Vegemite and anything else that catches my eye. I probably wouldn’t print this one for the wall but it’s interesting none the less. The only effects I added was turning it into black and white, reversing the photo and adjusting the value levels. Sometimes you’ve just got to muck around with Photoshop.
While black and white photos are fairly moody, they bring a lot of class to a room and draw your eye in. I love them in a flat black frame with a white mat. I hope these encourage you to have a play around with your photos and see what you can do with them in black and white.
Fiona Schiffl 