Scar Face (C)

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

I've decided to be brave and enter at least one entry under our theme for this month, in spite of a bunch of excellent submissions I've seen so far. I must admit I've underestimated the difficulty of getting a good B&W photo - specially from one of my most favourite subjects: the white lions at the Rhino & Lion Nature Reserve closeby. I thought it was a challenge to tame the whites of these animals in the color versions - it's 3x more difficult in B&W and I kind of managed by means of a few layers of curves-luminosity masks in CS6. I know I'm a bit tight, specially on the RHS but that was done in order to get a reasonable composition overall whilst keeping the animal as close as possible. We're all here to learn so so all comments welcome...

D600, f/6.3, 1/400s, ISO 800, Tamron 70-300mm @ 170mm. Beanbag in car window used for support.

(PS: I've slipped up on following the Attachment Management route in order to get the thumbnail displayed successfully...)

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Tobie - That's some head of hair on him. The purpose of the themes is for everyone to have fun, perhaps experiment a bit and to learn so don't hesitate to jump right in. The light angle wasn't on your side here. As with so many of the others sticking their toe in to toned images for the first time, the image doesn't have enough tonal range and contrast for me to work as converted. I took the liberty of bringing your image into PS and playing with it a bit, using levels, curves, selective color, and some dodging and burning selectively. This may be overdone a bit but I wanted to give you an idea and make the changes obvious rather than subtle so all could see. WDYT?

TFS,
Rachel

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Rachel, thanks for spending time on this - I really appreciate it! As I've worked on the B&W version of this pic I've soon realised that I could have chosen a much easier subject (something with strong B/W contrasts like a zebra or something similar) but just like you my thoughts were that I'm going to stick with it, have some fun, stretch and test my newfound knowledge of luminosity masks and learn in the process.

I actually like your version - I've played around with more contrasty versions as well but then backed off from it as I was not too sure what to think of it. Now that I see it coming from you, it actually looks quite OK. What I do note however is that your version started loosing some contrast in the legs for some reason (I know, it was not intended as the 'perfect' solution) so I need to find a version which combines the best of both worlds. Interesting excercise, that's for sure!

[Marc Mol]

Good effort here Tobie and leaning more toward your soft detail rather than the harsher contrasty look of Rachel's RP, perhaps somewhere between the 2.
Certainly a magnificent maned white male here, and not an easy one to get the balance right in a monochrome version, agree with you that B&W is not a straight forward affair, but certainly a very subjective one.

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Tobie,

Amazing mane this lion has indeed, resembles a wig! Like your thinking with the crop and presentation, Rachel's RP brings that contrast needed! Love the pose captured.
Keep them coming Tobie!

Kind regards,

[Andre Pretorius]

I would call him SunSilk!

Love the hair!

Bit tight, needs the contrast…Rachel's RP give the eyes life-what is he thinking about? To be or not?

Nice one, Tobie!

[Tobie Schalkwyk]

Thanks for the comments everyone!

Rachel you're right - it's all about having some fun. Your reply steered me towards my first experience with burning (to reign in the highlights in the mane) and this pic justified the need for it. I would not say I'm 100% happy with it yet but this final version is close to where I want to be (it's somewhere between our two previous versions). I've basically redone some curves & levels adjustments in addition to the burning of some highlights.