How to Shoot Professional-Grade Black & White Photography | London POV
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- Опубліковано 17 жов 2024
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See you on the street,
JP
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I had a lot of fun finally bringing POV style to the channel. Let me know what you think
Your photography and explanations are terrific, but your joy and enthusiasm for photography and well, everything is fantastic. Love your channel.
Yooo Thank you Paula - I appreciate that! Glad I can communicate how going out and shoot makes me feel ahaha. Thanks for supporting me!
Woah - not sure how I got here. That thumbnail & title combination must've HOOKED me beyond all sense and restraint. Excellent video.
Wonder who helped with that ;)
@@JamesParsons1 Whoever they are, they must be a wordsmith of high calibre lol
That shoulder go-pro is a gamechanger for this style of teaching. Next level, truly.
Thank you my dude - Realised that the top of shoulder mount was far inferior to the front of shoulder position ahaha. PLENTY more of this on the way
I loved the random shots James
Random Shots are the most fun IMO
Super.that was fun watching. Good Job. Thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it my dude! Appreciate your love and the time you took to comment ❤️big up
Another enjoyable vid James. Thanks for putting up with the smells lol.
Ahaha thank YOU for the coffee my dude
Some great photos here. Thank you for sharing the insight.
Thank you Joe! Glad you enjoyed the photos my man
Another cool video James - very much enjoyed!
Yes Ian!! Glad you liked it :)
Dude your photos, all of them, are fire... I really really like your videos and channel. It's probably the most underrated channel about street photography I've seen so far this year and I'm so glad I've bumped into your videos earlier this year... damn. Really looking forward to seeing you make a celebration video about 100k subs. I'm going to share your channel with my local friends who also do street photography here in Bolivia, for sure!
Dude - What. A. Comment. Thank you SO much for your kind words. We will get there, I have no doubt that the community is gonna keep growing going from strength to strength
Loving the the b&w shots dude
Yooo Thank you my dude
Very inspiring and thought provoking video. Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for supporting the channel
Amazing pictures bro. I just got a x100v today! How do you edit your B/W's? Was that in-camera or presets in your editing software, or what?
Prana - You are going to have SO MUCH FUN. I am so excited for you and your journey. All of my photos RAW and edited in lightroom. You can download free black and white presets at the www.buymeacoffee.com link in the description :) Let me know how you get on
Congratulations for the photos, I'm an amateur photographer and I prefer to take black and white photos. I recently bought fuji xt3 and I'm savoring the film recipes.
I saw your photos with very interesting black and white, I wanted to ask you if you used any fuji recipes or did you personally set the machine, could you give some advice to take interesting black and white photos regarding settings?
Thanks Andrea
Great question! I edit all of my photos in post using Lightroom, and have free presets at the buymeacoffee.com link :) Regarding settings, use your Electronic View Finder to look at the scene and go 'do I want this darker, or lighter' and then twist the knobs to see what it does. As a general rule, keep your shutter speed about about 1/160 to keep your images sharp when shooting hand held
Random shots: 8:12 - the single guy on the balcony......I love it. So good that it could be one of mine! Of course, your basic mistake for street photography is that you've got the silver version. Get the black version, stick a black rectangular lens hood on it and add a red shutter release button. Pure stealth mode. 🙃
Ahahah that guy was definitely curious as to what I was getting up to.
You better not be starting beef with the Silver Fuji gang, because you know we are slick and retro. Black's too stealthy and you loose the steeeeeeez ;) Might have to get a black one just to compare for scientific purposes though
@@JamesParsons1 It's funny: Young guy goes for retro and old guy goes for sleek and modern. 😄
Ahahah we just want to have a culture to call our own, so we steal yours ;)
Great vlog, love your style.
Yooo thank you Darren 🙌 appreciate your support and the time taken to comment! Means a lot to me
Love your work, your always motivational to lisent to and for the most part, your compostion and and understanding of light is brilliant. Love your work James !!
Yoooooo - I really appreciate that! Glad it comes across that way and that you enjoy my images. As with all creatives I have a love hate with them ahaha. Big up and thank you for commenting
Here's one... I had the OG x100 and sold it for the XT2. I ended up dumping Canon for all of my professional work and now use Fuji exclusively (aside from my RED Komodo). The loved and miss my x100 and have my name on a few waiting lists for the newer x100v. My question is this... Do you preview your images in Color or B&W? Or, perhaps you are using the optical viewfinder? The thing I personally love about mirrorless cameras is being able to compose in B&W. Your presets look good, btw. Keep up the good work.
Hey Scott - What a wonderful message to receive. Glad you like the video and the pre-sets!
I use the EVF to compose in B&W and I agree, I LOVE this feature. I think its been a multiplier in terms of my understanding of black and white as it shows you in real time what the camera is seeing. I can't get enough.
Thank you for supporting the channel man - Really appreciate your support :)
Great video, subbed 🤙🏻
Yoooo Thank you Dean
Amazing video as always; time for an Acros R kind of day. And I have to second the Fred Again tip! 🔥
Thank you very much my dude 😎 Acros R is the secret hidden gem of black and white Fuji photography
Nice images and video. Now imwant to grt a x100V again
Thank you my dude! I think you should go get another one ;)
@@JamesParsons1 haha yes. I havent given it a fair chance I see
Hey man really dig the vid. The shots on the Millennium bridge were really cool and abstract. I also like that you give a comment on why certain shots didn't work for you. I need to do that in my own work. I also think my favorite shot was the one at 7:49 I like the shots where you got close to the subject. To me monochrome works amazingly well when you can get close to the subject and capture emotion.
Yooo what up William - Glad you liked the video man! I love getting more abstract with my photography, I feel like i'm in a bit of a grey area where I am not abstract enough, but not story driven enough ahaha. We will work through it!
Being able to analyse your work and recognise why it might not be the way you want it allows us to use this info when we go out shooting next time :). I find its a balance between roasting your own work and feeling fulfilled by it :)
That image at 7:49 was gold. I love it. So much character from the young dude, and the dog peaking into frame. I guess the question is how do we capture more interesting subjects and present them in an interesting way, as opposed to just snapping them. I'm gonna chew on that one for a bit ahah.
Thank you for commenting my dude
@@JamesParsons1 That's interesting for me since I'm very much not abstract in the way I see so I find straddling that line pretty cool.
Keep going man I dig your vids.
My man
Black and white I love James!!! Love the new camera nice idea nice one. Still don t k now where to send anything to you James ??!!
Would it be @jamesparsons. But which thing did i send it to.???? You know I am very old and getting older by the minute be patient please Help me. Mike
Glad you found my email my dude! Will get back to you shortly. Thanks for your support
I just discovered your channel, brilliant videos ! Do you preset your BnW in the Fuji or you get this high contrast after post processing ? Cheers !
Thank you so much Gilles for the wonderful comment! Glad you like them :) The editing is all done with my free presets that you can download at the Buymeacoffee.com link in description ( just download no need to buy) and then I add in contrast especially around the subject. LMK if you have any questions over on IG
@@JamesParsons1 Thanks James. Is the preset for mac osx only ? I've loaded it onto LR for windows and can't see it in my preset panel.
Hey Gilles - I'm pretty sure it should work across all platforms as it's a lightroom specific file? Have you imported it correctly?
@@JamesParsons1 Yes, but I'll try again. I just wanted to have your opinion. Probably my mistake :)
Ausgezeichnete Bilder, sehr inspirierend!😃
Ich danke dir sehr! Ich freue mich, dass Sie sich von den Bildern inspiriert fühlen. Schade, dass mein Deutsch nicht so gut ist!
@@JamesParsons1 Your german is allmost perfect!
Great shots!! Was thinking of getting a Leica monochrome camera but also own a Fuji x100v
Hmmmm looking at your pics makes me think . Will the Leica produce better photos . I see your editing and looks great!!
Sent you coffee money :) cheers !!
Meet up in New York one day
Thank you so much dude! Glad you love the images so much. I'd personally play around with the Acros simulation (or DL the fuji black and white presets) before committing to a native B&W camera. The Leica will definitely have better noise performance, but is that something you particularly notice with the Fuji?
@@JamesParsons1 which BW presets you referring to?
The one on the buymeacoffee.com link! They are free to download and no need to get me a coffee for it 🙌
Love your bw pics James. 👍🏼
I understand you shoot some of the bw pictures in acros simulation on the street. But when it comes to editing in Lightroom, do you convert the acros film simulation to any other color simulation and then convert it to black and white and make the adjustments?, or do you start editing directly with the acros simulation and change the tones, colors in Lr?
Many thanks
Thank you very much! I appreciate that! Great Question.
I shoot raw, bring it into light room then edit it in black and white. I always find B&W is very different to edit compared to colour and therefore need to treat it differently. There are areas of light/dark that I would neevvver pick up on if I was editing in B&W. But when editing in B&W it's so obvious.
I think most photographers should give editing their photos in B&W from time to time as a learning tool.
I'm a bit tired today, but let me know if that makes sense! If not, I'll have another go
@@JamesParsons1 Thank you very much for your answer. I would have thought similarly because your bw pictures look amazing. It is an option to start editing with acros or monochrome simulation but I believe there is a price to be paid later, since when you want to edit in LR an image that was already “touched” by some smart algorithms and therefore transferred by them. That means starting the edit with less data, comparing to editing a raw image in bw like you do.
I assume the reason you sometimes shoot in Acros simulation is to see the image as bw on the street. Since you shoot in raw you can change to any other color simulation when starting editing in LR and then change it to bw. Is my understanding correct?
Many thanks
Yep your interpretation of my workflow is correct. I find shooting in B&W through the EVF reveals more to me that I would usually see if that makes sense?
I'm not sure whether I've fully understood what you've said about using acros in LR. When I shoot raw, I bring the file into lightroom and always apply the acros film simulation. As the data is still all there, I find I have no degredation of the image etc. However, if you mean shooting JPEG with acros and then editing, you are absolutely right; that file would break down reaallll quick and quickly get ruined ahaha
@@JamesParsons1 James, what I meant by using Acros in LR is as follows: even when I shoot raw and with across on the street, when I bring it to software in capture one, if I start the edit with acros simulation, because there is no color information I can not edit the colours. Although if I start the edit with another color profile, I can adjust all the colours to my taste and in the end put an across simulation. My question to you is do you first edit everything, including colours and then apply across simulation in the end?
In capture one there is an option to "enable black and white" on the raw file, and when it is ON it recognises the original colors and you can adjust with color sliders while the image is seen as grayscale. However that option does not work also with across and monochrome simulations.
What I was really trying to understand in essence is do you first edit color on the raw file then put the across simulation in the end image or something else?
Sorry for getting into too much technicality but I couldn't explain otherwise.
No worries - Please don't be sorry, I wanted you to best explain what you meant so I can try my best to help, ahaha.
I ALWAYS edit with Acros as my profile and never edit in colour and then into B&W. I'll be completely honest and say I've never even considered editing colours beforehand as my current thinking is that I would be adding in more steps to the process. I would assume that maybe playing with the luminance of colours would affect the image when converted to B&W, but I very quickly get bored editing the same picture and move on to the next, lol.
Do you find you prefer the end result after editing the colours first? For example, is it worth trying to do an A/B test to see whether that holds true when doing a blind test?
I was at that Bank of England location a few days ago and the smell was not good, but the light was fantastic and I got some absolute bangers, so a fair trade off ! 👌
Ahaha I am glad it wasn’t just me who thought it smelt! Let’s see the images you shot - would love to see them over on IG
Hi James, Amazing content, getting a big fan of you. I am unable to find the B&W preset on the link you provided. Could you please check if its still available. Thank you waiting for more content
Hey Ebby - Not sure whats going on there, I can't see it either... I'm gonna have to add sorting this to the list of things i've gotta do :)
Which hand sling do you have? It almost looks like you have a ring on your finger to keep the sling away from the display?
I’ve got the Peak Design wrist cuff which I Loooooove.
My ring is actually a health tracker and not intentionally to keep the wrist wrap away. Maybe I subconsciously use it :)
@@JamesParsons1 ah sweet, thanks for the reply. what health tracker you using?
It's the Oura Ring 2.0 which I particularly love for sleep tracking :) although their new model is very similar to whoop and I'm not sure which is best ahaha
@@JamesParsons1 If you have enough time sleeping, you aren't enough shooting ;)
ye, and with the oura 3.0 they went with a subscription model just like whoop :(
Lesson: sometimes you have to put up with a lot of piss to make great art. Nice video dude!
A loooooot of piss ;) Thank you my dude, glad you liked the video. And I appreciate you commenting on the video
👌
Big love Jeffery - thanks for commenting
I would really appreciate to know what is your typical shutter speed, aperture, iso, and autofocus set up on your street photography
Hey Off G - I don't share exposure settings for the images I shoot as I think they are misleading. They are hyper-specific to the available light and points less experienced photographers in the wrong direction. Most of the time I edit the exposure in lightroom anyway which therefore makes the settings I used a little invalid.
Typically, if I want something sharp I use 1/160 or faster. I use the aperture as a quick way to change my overall exposure and less about the stylistic output of the image. Iso kept as low as I can.
I've got a video on how I use the settings on my X100v if that would be helpful to you :)
James please change the background music of this video. This is so irritating 😫 even I can't bear to listen while watching your photography. Plz do not select such tracks in the coming videos!
offff, strong comments here! Please be more specific with your thoughts. Was it the song, was it that it became harder to hear? I'm always wanting to learn so the specifics help :)
@@JamesParsons1 oh so sorry.. James, if u feel awkward. I was just suggesting for the background music, which is playing in between; while you are talking. Actually it cuts the emotion while watching your fantastic street photography! I feel so.. Keep it up 😊 & Thank u for ur reply and attention 🙏
first time watcher but fwiw the music works for me too!
@@MarcusVorwaller mee too!
Gang - Thank you all SO MUCH for your feedback. I guess the music is polarising ahah. I'll take everyones thoughts into account and think about the necessity of music in the context of each video. Appreciate you all