Even though I much prefer golden hour color in my landscape photography, I find that there are light conditions and/or scenes that work better in monochrome.
Sometimes it is just the textures, patterns or shadows that make an image look better in monochrome. In the case of the photo above, the early morning colors were so intensely saturated that I thought those colors looked unreal, so I converted the image to black and white and I much prefer this look in this particular case. (Best viewed on Flickr and on a large screen).
Usually, I like monochrome for those images that I capture a little after the sunrise golden hour or a little before sunset golden hour.
In the image above, the sun had not yet come up, but shooting towards the early morning sky made this a better situation for monochrome.
The same is true for the image above. I have mixed feelings about this composition, not about the monochrome. I liked the look of the heavily textured, clay soil in the foreground and the gullies seemed to make good leading lines into the background, but is this a compelling photo? Opinions are welcomed, but please view on Flickr and on a large screen.
The readers can tell by the dates on the photos that I visited this area on separate dates and different times of the day, hoping to get different photographic conditions and/or to shoot from different view points. In the image above I wanted to show context for the natural bridge in the center, but I also wanted its shadow against the background features.
I wanted a wide angle view here and the light and shadows were best for a monochrome image. This is a result of focus stacking multiple images. A careful inspection of the clouds in the sky makes it apparent that there were multiple images used here. I could have easily replaced the sky with that from a single image, but I liked the indicated movement of the clouds, so I left this feature.
These last two images are not great, but I still like them, particularly the bottom one, with the subtle shadow of the most prominent feature on the background. I suppose I could have enhanced this image to make the shadow less subtle.
I hope readers are not getting bored with Bisti, because there are more post on the way,
Ken