Brian Parkin, QPSA
October 2025 - Black 5
About the Image(s)
I'm not a fan of trying to rescue a colour image by converting it to mono - if I want a mono image I usually make the capture with mono in mind.
But sometimes it's worth a try! I wanted an image of this steam locomotive (it's somewhat famous), but it turned up half an hour early, before I was ready for it - I should have been at the other side of the tracks where the light was much better! I didn't like the colour image, so I changed it to mono, played with the contrast a little, and cloned out a couple of street lights, and I think that it works.
Camera settings: Nothing special - this was a 'grab shot', so it was shot at whatever I'd last left my camera set to (iso400, f/7.1 etc)
5 comments posted
Hi Brian, I like the leading line idea of the railroad tracks; it also adds interest to the picture. As for the train, I felt you could add more "punch" to the picture to make the train stand out more... just my personal opinion as I prefer more contrasty B&W images. Posted: 10/15/2025 05:21:33
Nice shot and cudos on getting it under challenging circumstances. I wonder if you could put a mask on the sky and reduce the exposure so it is not quite so white. Love the detail in the train itself. Posted: 10/16/2025 14:24:06
I see a lot of potential in this image. This is one in which seeing the original would be helpful. Composition is wonderful which can be tricky sometimes when photographing trains. The double set of rails really helps pull your eyes through the photograph. I would love more contrast and detail in the sky though. If this was my image I would remove the houses on the right and maybe the fence on the left. I would also try to burn the shadows created by the train to lighten them up. With a composition this nice I don't mind spending the extra time in photoshop to compensate for those things you cant control. Posted: 10/19/2025 12:36:20
A great image that works well in B&W. Improvements as noted in the other comments would be to mask the sky and pull out the clouds or do a sky replacement in Photoshop. I also would do a mask on the background and darken it down a bit. Posted: 10/19/2025 17:28:33
I very much like the image overall. The sharpness is spot on. I've not worked with converting a color photo to black and white, but looking at the sharp definition in the shadow of the train, it seems to me that the sky might have been a bright clear blue (except for the couple of clouds), and I wonder whether in the conversion, there could have been a tweaking of the color balance to control the brightness of the sky. The other thing that was mentioned was cropping out the house on the right, but that would cut off part of the shadow -- it would seem possible to clone over the house with a bit of sky and perhaps some of the nearby foliage. And perhaps clone out the two thin poles to the left of the train. Posted: 10/23/2025 03:05:32