Without color

[David Eckels]

I have been working through a few shots from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, spectacular light and views as might be expected, but thought I'd experiment with a B/W rendering. Not a conversion of an existing color frame, an attempt to approach the subject as a B/W from the get go. Not easy and I thought I'd post this for C&C.
Thanks in advance.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

That shot makes a really good case for the canyon in black-and-white.
Beautiful!

-Eric

[GrahamBy]

Yes, I like it; It doesn't grab you by the throat like some colour shots, but then it encourages looking for longer

[stamper]

Possibly a little more contrast? That would be my preference.

[GrahamBy]

Possibly a little more contrast?

My preference would be to leave it alone. I see so many B&W images with the local contrast wound up that I'm allergic to it, but your call of course.

[RSL]

I think the B&W conversion is very well done, David. My only hangup is that if I remember correctly, beautiful color is one of the wonderful features of the Grand Canyon.

[wmchauncey]

I've never had the pleasure of being there, my bad.
I do wonder however what the same scene would look like if it were done in a photostacking technique.

[BobDavid]

It has the "feel" of an opening scene from a classic 1940s-1950s film noir. Very dramatic, if not melodramatic. Nice.

[David Eckels]

Thanks for all the comments!
I played with contrast, back and forth, and I guess with the textures in the rocks it kept going towards too much crunchiness, Robert. So I opted for less and added a little warmth to the conversion (only +2 on LR temp). The more I look at it, the more I like it, so that's a good thing.
Russ, thanks; I had been doing some color PP from my all too brief visit to the North Rim and some were spectacular, if I may say so. Those were posted on my FB page and on my website so I thought I would try this for a change of pace. A completely different mood, IMHO. And of course you remember correctly
I don't know what is meant by a photostacking technique. BTW it was a single exposure (0.5 sec, f/8, ISO 200) and the biggest challenge in PP was to get the near cliffs to stand out from those in the distance. Also, BTW, you should go
I am glad "melodramatic" is not a pejorative term; proves that color is not the only beautiful feature of this landscape. Perhaps that's obvious.

Again, appreciate all your feedback.

[Tapezu]

Its such a wonderful image! I actually like to soft contrast. It creates a kind of timelessness for the scene.

[GrahamBy]

There was an interesting comment in the Terence Donovan interview Rob C posted recently: he talked about a shot of some salmon that had been "pasted together from a stack of shots" (inexact quote from memory). He claimed that his earlier, single shot worked better because even non photographers recognised that something was wrong when everything was in focus: we expect finite DoF.

It's a different case for macro photography obviously, because we don't have an intuitive relation to the scale, and so the razor-thin DoF feels too narrow. But for me, focus-stacked landscapes "feel" artificial, just like heavy HDR...