I shot this photo of my friend Earvin last winter, while the weather in Los Angeles was on the fritz, windier and rainier than it had been in recent years.
Someone said they would have taken a photo of Earvin launching out of the miniramp, but he left their iPhone fisheye at home. I wanted to do one better since I had my camera on me.
The first thing I noted is how abysmal the florescent lighting is. Too dim to shoot comfortably, too bright in the background. Not to mention the fisheye doesn't go wider than f/ 3.5. With my flashes at home and my refusal to use on-camera flash, I knew my best chance of saving this photo was editing it in black and white.
Admittedly it can a cop-out sometimes for imperfections and poor shooting. I've switched photos to b&w when noise in a photo is out of control, when I missed moving distracting objects in shots, and way off exposures. But there are times when it's a necessary evil. That day was one of them.
Earvin was backlit, his features too shaded in and obscured by camera noise. My best bet was to edit in b&w so I could work off the contrast. I punched up the contrast, added grain (in part to cover up the noise), added split-toning, and applied a heavy vignette/border. I chose to work predominantly in Lightroom, only going into Photoshop to apply the film border.
The best route is to never fight the direction an image wants to go in. I've worked on photos in b&w, only to decide in the final stages it worked better in color. I'll bring down the opacity on the b&w layer for a quick 'what-if' peak. Digital in that sense is a godsend for letting you see multiple versions at the same time with minimal work.
If you're struggling to make headroom while editing, either take a break or start from scratch. You'll save yourself the headache.
With all that said, it came down to emulating a film photo because I couldn't see any other way to edit it. But I should mention I imagine shots in b&w predominantly. I'll talk more about that next article.
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