Reproduction of an old color photograph with a split toned black-and-white rendering
Darren Cuttler (Cutts) is my best friend. We met at a Dragon concert in 1979 in our hometown of Hamilton, Victoria. Dragon was a Kiwi (New Zealand) pop/rock band that settled in Sydney, Australia during the 70’s. They had a string of hits including Get that Jive, April Sun in Cuba, Are You Old Enough, I’m in the Sunshine and Rain.
As I write this post I realize that our friendship has lasted 30 years. While we shared a flat during the 90’s life got in the way and we haven’t spent as much time together as I would have liked. For a number of years we probably only saw each other a couple of times a year. Over the last year or so we’ve made a special effort to try to see each other on a more regular basis. When we can synchronize our calendars, based around the needs of his young family and my work commitments, we manage to meet for up to 2 hours on a Friday night for a few pints and a fair old chin wag. Such sessions are the highlight of my week, to which I really look forward.
Cutts’s dad, John, passed away several years ago. He was a great bloke and very kind to me. Well before I new the Cuttler family John operated a Taxi service in Hamilton. A little while ago Cutts gave me several digital files, which were scans of old color photographs made back when John ran his Taxi service. In the process of working on the files I’ve explored both color and black-and-white renderings of the images. For the above image I settled upon a split tone black-and-white rendering.
Adobe Camera RAW and Adobe Photoshop CS4 were employed to bring the old, somewhat faded color print back to life. I really hope this image, and the resulting print, will be well received by Cutts, his brother Andrew and mum, Joan.
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Glenn Guy, Blue Sky Photography
Filed under: Black and White | Tagged: Adobe Camera RAW, Adobe Photoshop CS4, Australia, Black and White, Cutts, Darren Cuttler, Dragon, Hamilton, Split Tone, Split Toned, Victoria |
Blue Sky Photography 
Hey Glenn, I love this photo (dark and grungy – my favourite!), love this story & love Dragon! I have been following your blog since I did the Portrait course with you at the CAE back in July/August this year. I took up your suggestion and started a blog myself and it has been great in terms of keeping up my skills. You even feature in my posts – your alias is ‘Teacher’! And a great teacher you are. Thank you for broadening my horizons through your course and this blog. I will keep following your posts and may even see you in the Landscapes course next year. Cheers & thanks, Eva
Hi Eva,
Great to see you’re blogging and that you find it beneficial to your photography. I very much appreciate your kind words regarding my own site and the fact that your enjoyed my classes so much. The landscape class takes technique and insight to the next level. I hope to see you there.
I’ve been promising to post details of upcoming courses on my blog. The problem is that other opportunities keep coming up. The most recent as stills photographer for an Australian motion picture film being made in November and December this year. I’m trying to find a way to fit in this gig with my other roles. Anyway, keep an eye on the blog because I’m definitely going to announce a range of workshops and one-on-one courses to be run in January and February by the end of this week.
All the best,
Glenn