This is one of the first monochrome photos I made back in 2006. It was taken at Dunnottar, a fortress on a rock in Northern Scotland. I wanted to learn digital monochrome at a time when it wasn’t that common (or it was just desaturation and super flat).
From the composition’s point of view, I wanted to have 3 layers. These are the foreground hill, the middle ground hill on the other side of the valley, then the sky. All 3 layers share similar colours and contrast, but originally with very different levels of brightness (I shot straight into the sun).
The scene and how it was framed also create a number of triangles, with 2 obviously dominating (the far field and the valley).
In the foreground, I wanted to see lots of texture in the snow. Otherwise it would have been a big empty, white space not worth looking at. So I looked for a spot that was a bit wind-swept to have that grain in the snow resulting from the wind scraping the surface. I also used the Sigma 10-20mm to get really close to the snow and accentuate that texture. I was on my knees, deep in the snow, and bending forward.
I included the grass in the foreground as well because I thought it would break the expanse of white snow a little bit and hold some interest.
In terms of processing, I did very little. I just aimed to have a balanced exposure throughout and a lot of contrast (that’s how I like my black and white).
I equalised the exposure of the valley in the middle a little bit because, being backlit, it was a fait bit darker than the rest of the scene. I didn’t want it exactly the same as the rest, it was a recess that needed to be darker, but just a bit more even. I also increased contrast in the sky slightly, but as I shot into the sun with a winter dark blue sky and a strong ND grad, it was already pretty dark.
I didn’t do anything else. I didn’t add noise because I didn’t do that at the time (unlike now, the goal at the time was to have the cleanest images), I didn’t add/remove vignetting, I didn’t clone out or crop.
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