Happy Independence Day!

So today, among other things, I went to Portsmouth and took a boat tour around the harbor. It was a good chance to get some photos. I haven't taken time to shoot lately, and I've been feeling a little uninspired. So today was a good time to change things up a bit and get behind the camera again.







Now if anyone else is from the Northeast, you know that the weather has been downright terrible over the last month or so. Today was a good change, and for the most part was beautiful. There were a few menacing clouds, and a few showers that blew through.





Finally, I'll take the last part of this post to talk about a post processing technique that I've learned recently. Specifically, the technique of converting color images to black and white. Of course, the easiest way to change a photo to black and white, is to simply convert it to grayscale and be done with it. This process leaves something to be desired, in my mind, and doesn't add anything to the picture to make it special. Black and white done right can look incredible, but it can also be drab and boring if not done right.



For the above image, I used a conversion method that is described here. The site I linked does a better job than I could ever do in describing how it works and how to convert an image using this method, but needless to say, this is much better than a straight grayscale conversion.