Monochrome Flowers

I shot these in London today (14/05/09), i'm not sure what they're called though.

Shot in RAW colour, converted to B&W, contrast tweaked and toned. As usual, my love for B&W never dies.

Osteospermum - African Daisy

[IMG]http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j159/paulyrichard/flowersmoreshadowsdarkenedmediumcon.jpg[/IMG]

Although I too love monochrome, in this case it doesn't work too well to my eyes. It would be interesting to see the colour version.

Best wishes, Kris.

Very nice actually .. like this a lot.
Never really thought of doing flowers in B&W.

nice pic pauly i think it works well

Thanks guys.

Kris, would you like to say why the B&W doesn't work for you?
Here is the unmodified colour version.

[IMG]http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j159/paulyrichard/Picture567.jpg[/IMG]

As a lover of color, I prefer the color version. I especially prefer flowers of any type in color. Not only is it refreshing to look at, I get to see form (as I see in the b&w version) and variety of hues against that calming green of the stems and leaves. To me, it's the color that captures the attention here.

That being said, I have thoroughly enjoyed your b&w portraits posted on here. They are masterfully rendered.

The back and white one works best for me. Couldnt tell you why though I have just been looking at the two for the last 5 mins trying to work out why

Anyway Great shot

Regards
PaulM

Usually one of the attractions of flower photography, for me anyway, is the colour itself. It is one of the reasons Fuji Velvia is so popular for flowers with its saturated colours. In this case, however, the colour in the flowers is rather weak and so in fact, having seen them both together, the BW conversion does work better.

Thats what I thought also, I agree with you. The shapes and graphic nature of the petals also made me go this route too.

Thanks Kris.

have to agree, bw does it for me.colour is a very nice medium,but with bw you have see/look for something else. only my humble opinion tho'.
you do have a good eye for bw pauly

Have to say I think you lose a dimension if you use B & W on a subject that should have colour, there are some shots and some subjects that work well in B & W flowers imo do not.

Strangely I took a shot of this plant myself 2 days ago only waited for them to close, here to show the different approach to the same subject is my version of this anonymous flower. Hope I can do this, if it is bad form let me know and I will remove it.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v173/Thordell/52%20Snaps/Closedforthenight.jpg[/IMG]

I feel that b&w works very well with flowers, more so with closed buds and smaller flowers, unless the colours are very vibrant or the flower is going to more or less fill the frame - then b&w is a very good way to get a nice shot out of an otherwise throw away image.

At the end of the day, every shot is different and not everyone is going to like the way you process them!

I personally prefer the originally posted b&w and think its a very good shot, although it is interesting to see the original colour ;o)




edit: typo

Thanks guys.

In my opinion for me, B&W is very valid for flowers that have strong tonal values, shape and form.
Texture, detail and lightin' is important too.