B&W Challenge No. 29 - Night Lights

[alexr]

Thanks for another month of B&W images, focusing on weather. This month I would like to think about images which show lights at night time. In the northern hemisphere right now clearly there is a lot of scope with dark evenings and Christmas lights wherever you look. Perhaps a bit harder for our southern colleagues, but I'm sure you are out late sometimes!!
What I am interested in is that Christmas lights are often all about the colour. But in mono we will have to focus much more on controlling the highlights within them and finding the right balance between it and the surrounding dark. I think it sets an interesting challenge, and am looking forward to seeing what we all come up with.
If you wanted to post the associated colour image that might often be an interesting comparison, and as usual, please share your processing method. And as before, please also post those images that didn't quite work; I think we learn more from them than the masterpieces!

[hmca]

Great idea for this month, Alex. We are presently in Florida so I had the opportunity to try to capture some tonight.

I'm pretty pleased with the first one but really can't take much credit for it as I used my camera's auto mode.
In SE I found that the fine art preset only needed a contrast adjustment and I was done.



This next one was also shot in auto mode. I ended up needing to take a screenshot of it as my laptop gave me some message about scratch disk being full and I wasn't able to save my work.



Used Selenium 6 for toning this image.......not really pleased with the results....think I needed to wait to blue hour to take this shot but I miscalculated and we were late for dinner.

[pontiac1940]

The town has a display along the highway. Included are Coroplast boxes (presents with bows) with internal lighting. They are under a large (living) spruce tree. 
The raw image was processed in ACR, opened in PSE with some level tweaks and some cloning out of hot spots. Was then converted to B&W using new adj layer, gradient map with B&W as the foreground and background colors. 

[fotofrank]

Decorated Snow Tree


Settings

[alexr]

Thanks for some great early postings.
hmca , your first works really well. And I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with being on auto with your camera. Experience teaches you the conditions that your camera performs well in, and in these circumstances why not go with auto? The skill is in knowing when to step in and over ride. It's like auto focus, there's nothing clever about focusing manually for the 95% of the time you don't need to. But enough of my rant. As a mono image I think it really works, there is just enough building showing for it all to make sense.
Your second I find less successful, if you don't mind me saying, I think mainly because it is a mix of light types (wall, internal, table, window) and I can't really make proper sense of it.
The third I really like. You'd think that having two main points of interest one right at the top and right at the bottom wouldn't work, but the topiary against the sky really holds it all together.
pontiac1940, nicely controlled lighting and well set up to just see enough of the tree trunk to establish the context.
fotofrank, also really well controlled, and thanks for showing how you'd dropped the highlights to get the light detail in, and lifted the shadows to show the surrounding trees.
I look forward to seeing more.

[kdcintx]

Night time along the San Antonio River

i.ibb.co/2K6rdTn/lights2.jpg

[billz]

Thanks for the challenge Alex. One of the things I like best about this time of year is that I can get out to shoot in the dark both morning and night!

This is a morning scene on Portland's downtown transit mall. I especially like the backlighting of the umbrella.



Here's the color version before I switched to b&w in ACR.

[alexr]

Lower Regent Street Christmas lights from a couple of years ago. Initially worked in Lightroom:


Lower Regent Street lights by AlexR!, on Flickr

Then processed in Silver Efex:


Lower Regent Street lights mono by AlexR!, on Flickr

[pontiac1940]

Our house. December 19, 2019. 
The speckles/sparkles are from a laser projection device.  

[alexr]

kdcintx, the first thing I thing is 'starry, starry night'. Great point of view and I really like how you've filled the frame and at first you don't quite spot the river until your eye is taken along the frame and into the space. The reflections on the water create a lovely texture all of its own.
billz, that could have looked a fairly ordinary damp street scene, yet, and this is particularly so in the mono I think, the umbrella with its through-lighting creates a real interest and lifts the whole scene into a much more artistic feel. I really like the strong sense of verticals repeating across the image.
pontiac1940, what a lovely welcome you extend to your visitors. I suspect in colour this would look less coherent, but in mono the lights don't clash, they all complement each other and your attention gets inexorably pulled to the living room window.

[hmca]

Went out tonight to get some local Christmas lights for this theme........
Black and white conversions were done in Silver Efex