For this month, March 2023, it’s a great time to think about creating “Monochrome” images when in general there is a lack of colour in the landscape.

There are many opportunities for monochrome images such as using dramatic clouds to complement your subject. Remember to compose the subject so that it stands out in your image.

Even during harsh daylight, it’s a great time to consider choosing monochrome to capture images. However, remember to consider your best position for the light in relation to your subject when shooting portraits in harsh daylight conditions.

You can also use longer shutter speeds with the appropriate light, usually earlier in the morning, later in the day, or on an overcast day, to create dreamy soothing water fall images. Note you may also require the use of an ND filter to slow the shutter speed down to the desired value. As the temperatures increase and the snow begins to melt as well as some rain, there will be lots of waterfall action to experience.

Get out there and practice by slowing down and looking for some interesting subjects. Then make them stand out by giving more attention to composition.

Although you can use post-processing software to convert your colour images to monochrome, but, If you haven’t been doing much shooting in monochrome, it’s a good idea to be able to preview your images on the camera in “monochrome” to help you visualize the result as you are shooting. To see the your image in “monochrome” on the camera LCD it requires you to change a camera setting, typically under your camera’s picture style menu.

The examples below are two procedures to show you how to change the Camera settings to shoot in monochrome:

• As an example, to change the “Picture Style” setting on a Canon T6i to “M” (monochrome), (see the manual starting on pg 125), press the down arrow (picture style) button, on the back of the camera, and then press the right/left arrow buttons, on the back of the camera, to pick the “M” (monochrome) and then press “set” to choose the selected picture style. Before pressing “set”, you can also press the “info” button to change the sharpness, contrast, filter effect and tone effect (example sepia) as well. (Warning: It is important to know that when shooting in “Jpeg”, with the picture style set to monochrome, the captured image will not contain any colour information, therefore, remember to change the “Picture Style” option back to the previous setting such as “S” (standard) when done shooting monochrome images to allow capturing any new images in colour.) Note when shooting in “RAW” the colour information is retained.
• As an example, to change the “My Colors” setting on a Canon SX30, (see the manual pg 79); press the “func/set”, on the back of the camera, then use the up/down arrow buttons to choose the “My Colors” option. Then press the right/left arrow buttons to pick the “Se” (sepia) or “BW” (black&white) option and then press “func/set” to choose the selected option. (Warning: It is important to know that when shooting in “Jpeg”, with the My Colors option set to Se or BW, the captured image will not have any colour, remember to change the “My Color” option back to “OFF” when done shooting monochrome images to allow capturing any new images in colour.)

Students are encouraged to develop their ability to tell a story or invoke an emotion, as well as how to plan and troubleshoot while creating their images. As such it’s important to not only create the image but to also include a “title”, and write a short paragraph about; how they came up with the idea, any interesting back ground that compelled them to make the image, and describe any techniques on how they overcame any obstacles.

As always with our monthly theme challenges we try to seek out additional instructional resources. Below are some YouTube video links to give you more hints and ideas.
■ The Secret to Black and White photography success By: Nigen Danson (16min 33sec)
■ Black and White Photography in the Digital Era B&H Event Space Speaker: Harold Davis (38min 15sec)

An important part of improving your photography is practice, which is one aspect of the monthly theme challenge in addition you have an opportunity to learn about different genres, techniques and tips.

With the weather being much colder outside this month, I encourage you to try playing with water drop photography. This can be time consuming, but lots of fun at the same time and you can try this initially without any fancy gear. Just use some containers you have kicking around, a plastic bag, clamp, needle, your tripod and you can give this a try.

I realize we cannot all be specialists in every genre of photography so for this month’s challenge I hope you will take the time to watch a talented UK professional photographer Adam Karnacz who does water drop photography as one of his specialties. Below you’ll find the link to his free Water Drop Master Class available from his website. Adam is unbelievably kind and provides this master class for free. If you enjoy what you learn please consider thanking him by making a donation.

Hopefully you’ll have lots of fun and enjoy something a bit different while wondering what to photograph staying out of the cold weather. Let’s see what images you create this month.

Although you can pull out a lot of gear to create amazing images, these two initial images shown below were created with minimal gear; Canon 50D, 50mm lens, tripod, and a wired remote, and natural light from my kitchen windows. It’s all about timing and a bit of post processing, mainly white balance for the blue colour and some cropping. The settings used were; f/2.8, 1/500, ISO 200, @50mm. If you have an f/4 lens then use ISO 400. You may need to tweak your settings a bit to suit your lighting conditions. The most important thing is a fast shutter speed which you may want to increase to 1/1000 or even 1/2000 making the necessary ISO adjustments to obtain a properly exposed image.

Students are encouraged to develop their ability to tell a story or invoke an emotion, as well as how to plan and troubleshoot while creating their images. As such it’s important to not only create the image but to also include a “title”, and write a short paragraph about; how they came up with the idea, any interesting back ground that compelled them to make the image, and describe any techniques on how they overcame any obstacles.

As always with our monthly theme challenges we try to seek out an instructional resource, and in this case here is a link to help you excel at water drop photography:
■ Water Drop Photography Master Class by: First Man Photography (Adam Karnacz)

An important part of improving your photography is practice, which is one aspect of the monthly theme challenge, in addition you have an opportunity to learn about different genres, techniques and tips.