Can you believe it’s June already? As expected, my neighbor’s maple tree has begun dropping its seedpods, or “helicopters” as I like to call them. They’re all over my yard, on my bushes, on my roof…I‘m sure you know the drill. Not that I’m complaining. I’ve loved watching them spin to the ground since I was a child. I’m 51 now, and I still like to pick them up and throw them back up into the air.
While up on my roof cleaning a few thousand helicopters out of my gutters and downspouts, I had an idea. Why not see what I can do with some of them photographically.
Walking around my yard with my Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro mounted on my Nikon D7000, I found a lot of good backdrops to place the seed pods against. In many instances, I didn’t have to place anything. The seed pods were just sitting there waiting on me. Of everything I tried, I liked my little helicopter friends laying on hosta leaves the best.
During post-production, I really liked the textures I was seeing. And being an older photographer who got his start shooting black and white negatives, I knew these textures would really pop in black and white. I’ve been wanting to try Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro 2 anyway, so I downloaded the free 15-day trial and loaded it up as an extension to my Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.
I found Silver Efex Pro 2 very easy to use. To transition from Lightroom to Silver Efex, you select Edit In from the drop-down Photo menu, or you can right-click on the photo and select Edit In. From there, a copy of your image is created and opened inside Silver Efex Pro.
Once inside Silver Efex, there are 38 presets on the left side with examples of what your photo would look like. On the right side, you can custom tweak your image to get any black and white effect you desire. There is also a section called Film Types where you can make your image emulate the look of many of the old black and white films.
Although I like Silver Efex Pro 2, I don’t do enough with black and white to justify the $190 price tag for the software. Regardless, I am enjoying the free trial and have 12 more days left to play. If you have any interest in doing some black and white photo projects, I highly recommend you give Silver Efex Pro 2 a try. If nothing else, download the free trial and see what you can do with it.