So I decided to go post something 'people-less' this week.

I was photographing the university's symphony orchestra rehearsal earlier this week - got some good stuff involving people - but I also got some good stuff without people. I don't think there's a great deal of interest in 'people-less' shots for a school, unless they are working on ads of some sort (and even then, they try and throw photos of students), and I didn't want these to go to waste.

Wooden instruments can be incredibly difficult to get in color due to fact that the white balance plays such a key role. Sure, the camera makes an attempt, as does Lightroom, but the hue of the wood is very difficult get 'just right'. If this were a canned shoot, I would calibrate a custom white balance setting in-camera before the shoot really began to make sure the hue of the instrument was recorded correctly.

These have been converted to black and white (obviously) - but not just any black and white: high contrast. There are a number of different ways to pump up the contrast to increase the drama. I did it by using a levels adjustment. You can get even more specific by raising and lowering the luminance of the individual colors. All in all, I like it the way it is.