Black swans and natural colour popping

click photo to enlarge
How ironic that a few days after offering my first and probably last photograph featuring "colour popping", I should take a colour photograph that looks for all the world like it has been colour popped!

That didn't occur to me when I was taking the shot of this black swan in a public park at Bourne, Lincolnshire, but when I brought it up on the computer the comparison was obvious. I took the shot on a fairly dull, overcast day, with the bird near the water's edge under some trees. The water, despite the disturbed reflections of the overhanging branches, was sufficiently light for me to see that I could make a silhouette of the curve of its black neck and head. And I certainly wanted the red beak and eye to be the visual focus of the image. However, I hadn't noticed that the water was, to all intents and purposes, black, white and grey. If you look closely, both the neck and water have a hint of brown to them, but at first glance everything is monochrome with the single splash of colour.

Just out of interest I copied the photograph, converted everything but the red beak and eye to black and white, and set it side by side with the colour original: there was a difference, but it wasn't very large. So, here we have it, a new photographic departure and technique - "natural colour popping" without the intervention of Photoshop, in this case featuring a striking antipodean bird captured on a cold day in Lincolnshire.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Colour popping

click photo to enlarge
I'm not a fan of colour popping, the trick of converting a colour photograph to black and white and deliberately leaving an area of (usually bright) colour. It seems to be a technique of the digital era: I certainly don't remember seeing it in the days of film. Image editing software such as Photoshop make it a fairly straightforward thing to do, and boy, has it been done in recent years. In fact it's been done to death.

I see it regularly on photography websites. Clearly some people are very taken by the technique, however I'm not. It has always struck me as "gimmicky", and I can't recall a single image that was improved by having this done to it. That said, I imagine you're wondering why I've done it to today's photograph. The answer is, "because the subject suggested it."

I was passing Quadring church in the fog, and stopped to take a photograph of this fine medieval building. I've photographed it a few times - see here, and here - but lately I've avoided doing so because that scaffolding on the spire has been there for months, an abcess on a thing of beauty. During my visit the fog was giving the scene a drab grey look, and I thought it was sufficient reason to overcome my dislike of the enduring scaffolding. But as I walked to my favourite position for photographing this church I came upon a bunch of the brightest, pink roses that I've ever seen. My first thought was that they were artificial flowers made of silk or some such material, but they proved to be the genuine article. The roses had been placed near a newly dug grave (just out of shot), probably yesterday, and their fresh, bright, summery radiance looked very out of place on a cold, foggy, February day. "Colour popping!" I thought, and took this photograph which I then converted. My first essay in the style is likely to be my last.

Looking at my image, and digging deep for justification, I suppose I could say that the colour popping device emphasises the unseasonal incongruity of the bright, fresh roses in this dull, dank, setting. What do you think?

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On