Kewaunee Lighthouse in Black and White

September 4th, 2009

This image of the Kewaunee South Peirhead Lighthouse in Kewaunee WI was originally a horizontal, color image. On the day I shot it a haze had settled over Lake Michigan washing out the sky and creating a very harsh light. The only reason I took the picture was to document it for my Lake Michigan
Lighthouses page.

Though I didn’t care for the lighting in the picture, I was intrigued by the the fisherman sitting at the end of the pier. So I cropped the image vertically in order to make the fisherman a more important part of the scene. Then I forgot about the picture.

A couple weeks later I was looking through my images for possible black and whites when I came upon this picture. I thought it might make an interesting black and white, so I began playing around with it. Almost immediately I had a nostalgic feeling about this shot. It just felt old to me. Something about the lighthouse and that fisherman. This image could just as easily been taken a hundred years ago in 1909.

Because of that nostalgic feeling, I decided to give the image an aged look. I added grain to it and a fairly heavy vignette. I felt that the grain added texture to the image that gave it that older feeling I wanted. The vignette also added to the old feel, and it helped fill in that washed out sky.

This image is a good example of never giving up on a picture. Maybe the original wasn’t the best shot I’d ever taken, but with a little artistic vision and modern imaging software, I was able to create an image that I like a lot and that I’m very proud of.

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