Referring to “Within the Frame,” that is. Barely a chapter in & it’s making me think.  Take, for example, the most recent photo posted here. Decent, but I’m not sure it works.

I mean, the view was spectacular: clouds rolling in, overhead.  The sky blue, but going hazy – the sun was losing its strength.  But there, in the distance: yes, it’s light, hitting the mountain!  This is a great thing, if only I can show the contrast well.  And in that sense, I think it failed.

Early on, duChemin makes a point about color.  To paraphrase: if color doesn’t add anything to the meaning of the frame, don’t use it.  It will merely dilute the main idea.

Now, Mr. duChemin prefers monotones and duotones.  I’m not really sure what I prefer, although I do have a strong affinity for B&W – especially through NIK’s Silver efex plugin.  So I played around with a few versions, trying to get a feel for things.  What ended up being my favorite:

Hospital again, in B&W

If you view it large, you’ll get the intended effect: the light on the mountains, darkness all around.

This was, perhaps, a tad overdone in processing.  But it makes two points: first, color wasn’t really an integral part of the experience.  Black and white rendering makes that distant brightness really stand out.  Second, the processing in B&W allowed me to focus on really driving in the differences in luminosity, which again drove in the point of there being light in the distance.

Besides, I also got to make it look coolish with the grain and what all…