Photo of the Month 2017/11

Lately, I stumbled over the work of Michael Kenna. He is known for his really impressive black and white images of various landscapes from all over the world. They all have in common a very special atmosphere achieved mainly by high contrast, rather dark shadows and often heavy vignetting. With that in mind, I created a workflow (a.k.a. style) for the darktable raw processor that simulates this atmosphere.

Lessons learned: You have to cut a great deal of the shadows to achieve that image style. I mean: a great deal! Be daring!

The image above shows the Kramnitz Gorge in the Bohemian part of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains. There wasn't much light available that fall afternoon in the deep and narrow gorge, so the original color image looks fairly flat. The black and white processing in contrast gains a lot of atmosphere, not only by spreading image contrast.