Travel & Humanitarian Photos
I always enjoy time photographing in and around Bangkok’s fruit, veg and flower market. It’s definitely a working market and so provides lots of opportunities to photograph “behind the scenes”. It’s busy and there’s always a chance that you’ll get your ankles clipped by one of the handcarts being pushed at speed by the market’s barrow-boys as they ferry produce from stalls to waiting tuk-tuks. Despite the fact that everyone in the market is working hard to earn a living, people are invariably happy to be photographed and seem to enjoy the momentary diversion presented by a grinning farang with a big camera.
Today’s market expedition was part of one of my “Bangkok Insider” Photo Workshops, where I accompany a photographer for the day, showing them how I would approach photographing in a certain location. These workshops are always great fun and give me the opportunity to share some of the skills I’ve picked up in recent years.
You can see some of Irene’s photos from the workshop here with a selection of her black and white images here.
I rarely, if ever, shoot for black and white. Especially in Bangkok, which is typified by riotous colour in every direction. However, I don’t take a lot of photos during workshops, usually only when demonstrating my approach to photographing people so I thought I would take a few photos specifically for black and white conversion today. I was really looking for an excuse to put some Lightroom presets together to give me a one-step black and white processing option which will quickly show me how a specific image looks in monochrome.
The settings create an image which is purposely high-contrast with darkened shadows and with a high “Clarity” setting boosting contrast in the mid-tones. Meanwhile, the Split Tone preset adds a traditional yellow/blue tone, with the balance pushed up towards the highlight end a little. Both are available for download below. All yours for free. I know, I’m too good to you.
(Right click on link, “Save Link As” or “Save Target As”)
Lightroom Preset: Black and White
Lightroom Preset: Split tone
If you’d like to accompany me on a photo workshop, visiting “behind the scenes” Bangkok, further details can be found on the Bangkok Insider page.
Gavin,
Very nice. I especially like numbers 1 and 3. They have a wonderful old world feel to them.
Ain’t Lightroom grand?
thanks,
jack
Wow, the pictures look great even in B&W…and thanks a lot for the Lightroom Preset…and yes, you are too good!
)
I like the 1st photo a lot, yup very interesting eyeglasses.
Thanks a lot for the great experience. I really learned a lot from you yesterday, you are so generous
Cheers Jack.
Irene, at the risk of making it look like we’re starting a Mutual Appreciation Society, you were great company yesterday and I had a lot of fun. I look forward to catching up with you again soon.
Gavin,
Any chance you could explain the ‘Tint’ slider for the WhiteBalance, and it’s relation to the colour temperature?
I’ve found en explanation somewhere on the Adobe site, but that was way too cryptic to understand.
Woops, typo in my previous post. Sorry for that.
Jeroen, My understanding extends only as far as moving the tint slider one way makes the image more magenta and moving it the other way makes it more green. I’m not sure that there is a direct relationship with the colour temperature in the same way as with the “Temp” slider.
Hmm, Scott Kelby was no help on the subject either so I’m no wiser. Let me know if your research reveals more.
To be honest, I use the White Balance eye-dropper most of the time and find that to be an easier way to set the WB.
Good question Jeroen, keep ‘em coming.
Thanks Gavin, if I find anything worth mentioning, I’ll tell ya