The Artist's Palette

So I have been thinking about how I choose the way to render

a scene that I decide to photograph.  It is a bit like how the

artist chooses his palette - sometimes an artist will choose

warm colors, or cool colors for his scene.  For me the main

choice has always been between color and black & white.

But for the time being I now have the additional choice of

infrared to choose from.  It is not a simple decision - it

depends on the subject, and it definitely depends on the tones

within the scene, and on the lighting that is present.

So here are two different subjects photographed several 

different ways, so you can see the differences in rendering.

This is a black and white rendering

This is the color rendering

And this is the infrared rendering.

My sense of this scene is that it works pretty well in all three

renderings.  That is not the case with this second subject.

This is the black & white rendering.  The dark leaves

blend into the dark color of the building and are lost.

This is the infrared version, and the leaves jump out

in the photograph because they are white and the 

building is dark.  This is my favorite version of this

photograph

And this is the color version, and it is relatively

unremarkable.  I think it is better than the black & white

version, however.

I hope you find these comparisons interesting.