Monochrome mountains

JohnFar

JohnFar

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Since summer arrived, with green mountain grass and (often) blue skies (conditions which many like - Steve! - but I don't) I've been trying to 'see' in monochrome. Here's a couple of examples for comment and criticism.

_FJA4449ncbw s.jpg Tryfan


_FJA4501ncbw.jpg Y Gribin

_6155314rncbw j11.jpg another of Tryfan
 
Yes I love the green grasses, blue skies and long shadows. I am one of the few that do.

The first is quite interesting and I like the other two but I don't think they need as much sky as they have. I see a nice letter box for 2 and a wider aspect for 3.
 
For me the last is probably the best.

The thing with mono is to consider the tones - with colour work similar tones separate because of the colours (sorry to teach grandma etc) but with mono it's all about light & dark. For me, the tones here don't give the subjects of these images body or volume - it's variations of grey on grey. The first breaks this a little, but the patch of blown sky and the inkiness of the bottom of the image don't provide that same sense of size that the picture would have in colour. In the case of these, to an extent they need much more over-cooking in mono to emphasis the size and majesty of the mountains, and your development is terribly polite.

I hope that's useful in some way.
 
Thanks both for the comments. Steve - the skies are, for me, as much part of the picture as the mountains, and the position of the darker and lighter clouds has to influence the composition. Doesn't mean I've got them right, but it's why there's a lot of sky. Toni - thanks; I'll revisit the processing - there is certainly a history of very contrasty monochromes of British mountains, as opposed to the 'too many tones' of the f64 school. Guess I need to play a bit more to find what works for me.
 
The first one is great, really interesting view of Tryfan and good processing to take the eye in.

The second looks a little OOF at this resolution but the sky is nice in it even though it could take a little crop along the top?

The third for me has not necessarily too much sky top right, but not enough mountain bottom left...
 
I think that they're pretty good, nicely textured. The second is soft though, as someone already mentioned.

ancient_mariner said:
The thing with mono is to consider the tones - with colour work similar tones separate because of the colours (sorry to teach grandma etc) but with mono it's all about light & dark. For me, the tones here don't give the subjects of these images body or volume - it's variations of grey on grey. The first breaks this a little, but the patch of blown sky and the inkiness of the bottom of the image don't provide that same sense of size that the picture would have in colour. In the case of these, to an extent they need much more over-cooking in mono to emphasis the size and majesty of the mountains, and your development is terribly polite.
Click to expand...

I agree on the inkiness, those dark areas do need lifting, though can see no blown sky. I'm not sure about much more, or indeed any, overcooking. Overcooking is just that, and tends not to really work. A bit of building of the upper sky on #2, maybe some subtle use of the history brush to accentuate the lighter areas of the rockface if you are using photoshop (use a new layer, set for 'screen' and try 5%-10% - you can adjust the layer opacity too).
 
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