Critique Hibiscus close-up

[Mike Buckley]

I've lived across the street from my neighbor for 35 years and every summer I've admired her hibiscus bush with large blossoms that are about 8 to 9 inches in diameter. Now that I've got focus-bracketing hardware and focus-stacking software, I felt for the first time I could make a photo that would do justice to the gorgeous flowers.

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[nuclearjock]

Wow!! Beautiful Mike. I'd like to see the color version.

 

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Rick!

I'd like to see the color version.

Sorry, but it's too boring, partly because I thought in black-and-white from beginning to end.

 

[Palouse]

Metalic. Karsh of Ottawa, but for flowers! Bravo!

 

[gchappel]

One of my favorite flowers. Nicely seen here.
Color would be a whole other image- which I could not un-see. The black and white makes a strong statement- and at least for me the color is implied.
Gary

 

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Gary and Nick!

at least for me the color is implied.

That fascinates me! There are several basic hibiscus colors -- at least red, pink, white, yellow, blue, purple and orange. Which color(s) do you infer from seeing this monochrome image?

 

[gchappel]

If this is were triX film, this would be a pink or yellow flower. Other colors do not have this grey tone, they are different. I of coarse do not know what color it actually was, so I get to pick my own color. I know it is a color- so I get to pick. One of the problems I have with digital black and white conversions is they often do not render colors the same as the old films I grew up with.
Maybe it is just me, but I add my "own colors" to every black and white image I see.
What color was it?
Gary

 

[Mike Buckley]

If this is were triX film, this would be a pink or yellow flower. Other colors do not have this grey tone, they are different.

Wouldn't that depend on the color of the filter or the lack of the filter mounted onto the lens at the time of capture?

The flower's petals are red.

 

[dossy]

The black and white is stunning, Mike! Sometimes the color version is just "nice!"

 

[Bart]

Stunning b&w, Mike!
Beautiful textures, shapes, patterns and - of course - light.

 

[gchappel]

Wouldn't that depend on the color of the filter or the lack of the filter mounted onto the lens at the time of capture?

Absolutely! Way back when, the only filters I could afford sucked a couple of stops of light- so I rarely used them. I only ever used a red, orange and yellow.
I guess I should have said: triX film, shot without filters, processed by me and printed by me with my workflow gave me black and white images that I knew what shade of gray each color would become. It wasn't anything you really studied- after a couple of years you just knew. That was one of my issues with early digital black and white- the color rendition to grays was "wrong"- at least to me memory and my eye. It has gotten much much better.
Gary

 

[Palouse]

This may help people visualize filter effects in B&W: https://www.photographymad.com/pages/view/using-coloured-filters-in-black-and-white-photography

 

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you also to dossy and Bart!

 

[Mike Buckley]

That was one of my issues with early digital black and white- the color rendition to grays was "wrong"- at least to me memory and my eye. It has gotten much much better.

I've been thinking about this and, for me, the advantage of converting to black-and-white in a digital process is that it's not limited to the relatively few colors of filters that were available to the film photographers; literally every color in the spectrum that is visible to the human eye is available for use as a filter. My point is that I don't think of converting to monochrome in a digital process as an emulation of when photographers used a color filter while exposing film.

 

[Binnur]

Great photo Mike and B&W suits the image very well. I don't think it would look so artistic in color.

 

[Deleted member 960]

Don't need a macro for a bloom that size, love the detail and tones, Mike!

 

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, Bill!

Don't need a macro for a bloom that size

Indeed, I used my sharpest lens, a 50mm prime.