This ‘Dramatic Tone’ phase in a dark cloudy winter is hopefully over soon! Overcast is an uninspiring light source at the best of times so any useful technique helps. A recent trip to Tyneham and Worbarrow Bay in Dorset (UK) provided a chance to use it again.
Tyneham – a village taken over by the army and never returned to the previous owners (the Bond family). The Bond’s family motto ‘The World is not Enough’ was used as a Bond film title.
This isn’t just a gimmick – it’s genuinely (commercially) useful at those times of the year when light is limited and flat and you need to inject some drama into an otherwise bland scene. ‘In Camera’ effects are often criticised for being a bit crass – the ‘Dramatic Tone’ is genuinely useful in black and white if used carefully, so I beg to differ.
A published book cover (Arcangel Images/Rob Lambert) using this technique!
Corfe Castle shot from the south. The original was pretty dreary but this is good.
Corfe Castle – a remarkable range of tones for a winter landscape, shot with the 40-150mm kit lens.
Finally, a shot of an old farm building near the coast, inhabited by some wind battered trees.
Using the 14-42mm kit lens. The remains of a farmstead on the way to Worbarrow Bay.
Thanks for looking – hope you like these!
28mmf2 
Beautiful images, Rob! You know how to work with overcast!
Thanks drawandshoot – the skies are slowly clearing so it will be back to the summer equivalent – Infrared – before I know it!
Love them Rob – I too am a great fan of incamera process effects, at times they are great sketch pads for inspiration when sometimes it is lacking !
Hello Lesley – good to hear from you and thanks for the comment.
How’s your Arcangel stuff going?
Great to see the in-camera effects put to such good use. Great shots 🙂
Thanks Postcard Cafe – this effect has been a godsend over what has been a dreary, overcast winter. Don’t think I’d have taken many shots without it…
I have the EPL5 and after seeing your images I’m inspired to dip into the effects a bit more. Cheers….
Brilliant! Hope you have fun with the effect (and look forward to seeing the results!).
No, I don’t like them, I LOVE them! It’s very amazing how the photos don’t look flat. Remarkable shots!
Thanks basiga!
I mentioned that you had inspired me to use the dramatic tone in the EPL5 and this week I set about doing so.
I thought the heavy mist on the hills near where I live, combined with the dramatic tone might provide some interesting results. If you are interested to see the outcome take a look at the last three posts from April 2nd,3rd and 4th here on http://postcardcafe.wordpress.com/
I had a lot of fun shooting with the dramatic tone effect. Although I realise there appear to be some variable settings within the effect I mainly used the default setting.
Thanks for the inspiration – Have a good weekend 🙂
They’re excellent – especially the latest with the spiders web. The most important thing (at least I think) is not to allow the effect to become too obvious – something you’ve done well on these images. Nicely done!