Highway Junction

by Arzell Harden
(Madison, TN)

A junction of two highways that drive along to get to my relatives' house.

The deep blue sky and the lone cluster of cumulus clouds, along with the empty intersection made me think of a long road trip on a lazy summer afternoon.

So I pulled out my (crappy) digital camera and snapped this pic while behind the wheel. It's a colour photo converted to black and white via Photoshop, using hue/saturation layers and blending modes.

I wouldn’t recommend taking photos whilst driving (and I hope Arzell stopped the car first!) as it does tend to lead to accidents.

Nice shot though, and well done to realise the black and white potential of this.

Skies usually come out really well in black and white, especially if you have done what Arzell did and use software to convert a colour photo to black and white (rather than using the camera’s own black and white mode – read this article on black and white photography to find out why.

If you’re interested in trying out converting a photo to black and white so that you get really good contrast like this, have a look at this Photoshop tutorial for black and white photos.

If you have other software, try converting a colour photo to black and white and then play with the contrast a bit. It almost always gives a better black and white effect.

Thanks for the submission,

Darrell.