Milan monochrome morning
Early morning sunlight casting long shadows on the flagstones and marble mosaics of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Milan, Lombardy, Italy. Image © fotoVoyager 2009.
I haven’t worked with black and white film since the advent of affordable digital SLRs and I can’t say I miss the roller coaster lottery of developing and printing, though it was quite a satisfying craft when it worked out as you expected. I do miss the graphic boldness of a high contrast monochrome image though and some pictures – like these – are just begging for this treatment. Because my workflow involves Lightroom to process the images (a new digital craft not dissimilar to old school developing) it was easy to convert them to greyscale and adjust the tones to my liking to give this classic contre-jour feel, a timeless bold expressiveness that concentrates the viewer’s eye to the composition and lighting that colour sometimes disguises.
These images were taken on the first morning I had in Milan without rain. I wandered round soaking wet for two days scouting for locations and potential shots before the weather turned to my advantage and transformed the gloomy industrious city into the more picturesque Italian town I was looking for.
Click on each image to buy it as low cost royalty free stock.
1/125 second, f16 to f22, ISO200 20mm
2848 x 4288 pixels.
Please don’t steal these images, it’s how I make my living.