Medieval Lantern Black & White

[MT Pockets]

File name - Medievil Lantern.jpg
Camera Make - OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.
Camera model - E-500
Focal length - 40 mm
Max lens aperture - f/3.5
Exposure - 1/160 at f/5
Flash - Not fired, auto mode
Exposure bias - 0 EV
Exposure mode - Auto
Exposure prog. - Creative
ISO speed - ISO 100
Metering mode - Pattern
Digital zoom - 1x

Dimensions - 2448 x 3264
Original file size - 3.69 MB
Image type - JPEG
Color space sRGB
Date taken - 13-Aug-09 22:55

Hello DPS'ers!
My first posting in the critique area. I took this back in the summer during a trip to the local zoo with my kids. I was just getting used to using my camera and had it set to Auto mode, but I'm now experimenting with Aperture priority mode.

I was going through my images in lightroom and came across this one and decided to monkey around with it to see if anything would jump out at me. Posted above is the result.

I used lightroom and adjusted the white balance, and also applied a preset for B&W. I didn't crop it, it's just as shot as far as composition is concerned. I contemplated cropping out the little corner at the bottom where the brick walls meet, but left it to add a little perspective.

This of coarse was a color image at first, but since the lantern is a copper color, and the bricks are natural tones too it seemed uninteresting, that's why I chose to convert it to B&W

Since I'm new at this, not sure of what to ask, but here goes...

1. What do you think of the composition?

2.Is the contrast or tones good for a B&W?

If anyone has any other comments or suggestions to make this a better image I'm all ears.

Thanks
Gene aka - MT Pocktes

[windrider86]

I like the composition and the black and white. I might have left a tiny bit more room to the left of the lantern just to even it out a bit.
Have you maybe considered doing a vingette to bring more attention to the lantern?

[SriMesh]

In the black and white it is nice to have the two contrasting textures offering the grey shades. It is a lovely idea. Did you try just keeping one colour on the lantern and leaving the rest of the image black and white? Depending on the brass colouration, it may also give another study on the composition.

[MT Pockets]

Thanks for taking the time to review my images, and your kind feedback Windrider, I wish when I shot this I would have taken the time to think about the composition more, but the kids were on a run, and I was snapping quickly trying to keep up I never thought about a vingette, I will maybe give it a go.

Srimesh, Thanks for the kind words as well, I never gave it a thought to try something like that, but will consider it and see what happens. Just for giggles, here is the image as it came from the camera, and to give an idea where this lantern is, I posted below an image of the stone wall and gate where the lantern is hanging. Keep in mind that these have not had any processing done to them, they are fresh from the camera except for converting them to Jpegs from RAW.

[SriMesh]

OOOH!! That is a beautiful place! Your other captures of the wall and door are also captivating, Have you tried various crops to focus in on aspects and compositions there as well? The textures are amazing, from a photography perspective, you could burn a "roll of film" in no time at all to do an encompassing study.

I hope you don't mind, but I experimented with letting the brass shine through. I first did auto levels in Photoshop, then two layers of darken to bring out a richer brass colour, masked the brass colour highlights, inverted, desaturated to rest of the image not brass to black and white, then I overlayed your b&w picture to capture the white balance you applied on the raw image for the brick work and then used a vector mask to bring out the copper tone highlights on the lantern. There have been other places I have seen folks do the Mono with a dash of colour or black and white with a splash of colour

[SuperDan]

I love it with the copper color highlights!

[MT Pockets]

SriMesh, I dont mind at all. It's nice to see what other people can do!
Nice job on the enhancements! I really like the copper highlights as well.

Yes, these were snapped at our local zoo were there are infinite opportunity for serious snapping! I hope that my post processing skills will allow me to do such fine work, however I'm just beginning.

When I have time, I may try some of the other suggestions as well

Thanks Everyone!