black and white

[davidhampshire]

do any of you take any black and white photos ?   

[blackcloudbrew]

Yes, I do a lot with film these days and do convert my images to b&w from time to time.

[davidhampshire]

how do you convert from film to get them onto the computer?    and do you have any that you particularly like from recent shots,   bcb ?    dave

[blackcloudbrew]

Basically you use a scanner either on the negatives (which to me is the normal most high resolution way) or scanning the print.

Here are a few I shot in the canyons of southern Utah this October.

Aquarius Mesa

645_111003-9 by blackcloudbrew, on Flickr

Kodachrome Basin State Park

645_111003-8 by blackcloudbrew, on Flickr

Local Utah Humor

645_111003-7 by blackcloudbrew, on Flickr

Bryce Canyon

645_111003-1 by blackcloudbrew, on Flickr

[davidhampshire]

very nice ,   is that a totally different feel to take photos with the 645 film camera,   bcb?    then you scan the negatives and can convert to black and white ?   or you use black and white film to start ?     like the way you have the shadow in the forground in a couple of these.
dave

[blackcloudbrew]

First, I just grabbed the most recent images I had and they happened to be from my 645 camera. I shoot both 35mm and medium format film. While either my 645 or 6x7 film cameras are quite different in feel over a 35mm film camera, film, in general, is just a different process and feel than digital. These images are shot with black and white film and while, I could shoot color film and convert it to black and white, my view is that you shoot b&w film for that purpose, b&w images. In fact I believe the great range in tonalities you get with b&w film is superior to any conversion. That's one of my renewed interests in film b&w photography.

Thanks for the comments, I waited to get the shadows in the shot when I took it. I wanted to use the shadows to provide layering in the shots. With b&w, it's all about contrast tonalities.

[blackcloudbrew]

Here are a few from my 35mm camera:

Child on beach

PZ-1p_1121-11 by blackcloudbrew, on Flickr

Curves

PZ-1p_1121-7 by blackcloudbrew, on Flickr

Ferry seats

Ferry Eureka passenger deck by blackcloudbrew, on Flickr

Drake's Bay spray

ZX-M_1229-16 by blackcloudbrew, on Flickr

Oak

ZM-5n_111026-3 by blackcloudbrew, on Flickr

[Pacerr]

There's a few here:

http://www.pbase.com/pacerr/misc_bw&page=all

and

http://www.pbase.com/pacerr/rural_b_w&page=all

A lot of my shots are taken with the possibility, if not the intent, of converting to B&W in PP.

H2

[blackcloudbrew]

Nice stuff. Love the feel to a lot of those.

[davidhampshire]

something nice about black and white,    i don't know what it is or how to describe it,   these are all excellent ,  bcb;
and pacerr-- you have surprised me with these b&w shots-- wow !   
dave

[blackcloudbrew]

I don't know about Hank but I look at b&w images as being the most interesting and/or difficult from an artistic point of view. You really only have contrast to work with and it makes you (or so I feel) work harder on the composition.

[Pacerr]

. . . it makes you (or so I feel) work harder on the composition.

In my case, I believe B&W's easier. I can fool around endlessly on color shots and never quite feel I'm THERE. But B&W just seems to pop for me if it's gonna work at all. And digital processing makes it SOOO easy to tweak the results compared to wet darkroom processes.

Sometimes I have to convert color to B&W to figure out what I'm doin' wrong with hues, tones or composition either one.

H2

[davidhampshire]

i think bcb is on to something about composition with black and white,   and also it's more almost a black and light thing,   you know what i mean,  bcb ?  ,   don't know.   

dave

[blackcloudbrew]

Yep, I sure do. When you are working with a DSLR and have the ability to convert to b&w when you want to, it does give you options. For example, sometimes when the sky is not helpful (or contrasting or off color or something) to a landscape, I'll convert the image to b&w. This sometimes makes the sky go white and eliminates the conflict in the image. Hard to explain what I mean there but it's a little trick I've used sometimes.

With film you don't really get that choice.

[davidhampshire]

hey i see you have a camera converted to infrared ,  bcb,    do you have any shots from that one recently?    those are kinda like black and lights too.   dave