Life In Mono

Yesterday I posted an update containing a picture of some "work in progress" (WiP). Now I don't normally post WiP shots but I was testing my new tripod and the pictures were was so good it would have been a shame not to include at least one of them. It helped that the figures were the excellent 15 mm 3D prints of Arab camel riders from Red Copper.

To publicise my post I shared the picture on Bluesky, where I am vexillia.me.uk, and the Society of Ancients forum. To my surprise it generated quite a decent response. As the likes rolled in (it was more of trickle really) I started messing about with the image. In the end I removed the background and produced a monochrome version:

Have a play with the slider to compare and contrast (desktop only) then read on for an interesting painting tip.

Things are better in black and white

The more I looked at this version the more I liked it. In my eyes there's something about it that makes it far more striking than the colour original. I don't know what it is. I liked it so much I posted it as a follow up to the original post.

I soon discovered I wasn't alone in liking the mono version. Then one user, Tancred, replied:

Black and white is how I check if my contrast is working.

Asked to expand on this, and confirm he was talking about painting not photography, he said:

If I am not sure the contrast on the model [is] working I take a picture in black and white on the cell phone. I have a bad habit of being way to[o] subtle in my transitions and this helps me shake it.

I was really struck by this reply. It's such an interesting approach and could well explain why I find the mono version so striking.

I may use this approach as I paint the next few camel riders, but, after my next photo-shoot, I will definitely convert a few images to mono to see if they are just as striking.

Closing remarks

It's such a simple thing to do with such dramatic results. What do you think? Let me know in the comments.