Photography For Your Soul

I made an observation while viewing some black and white (B&W) photographs today. Many of them looked like a color photo without the color. Creating a black and white photograph is an art. I think it takes more work to create relevant B&W photograph than color (don’t beat me up over this, it is just an opinion).

I think it comes bit more naturally to me these days versus my first attempt.  My first roll of film ever shot was Pan plus in a Kodak range finder at the age of nine or ten. I was told to expose the roll wisely. When I saw the negatives after the final rinse, I was disappointed with the results. A side note – I had to learn how to develop B&W film and make prints before I create my first exposure. I think it was my dad’s way of not developing his own film.

My first thought was I wasted a roll of film. It was my father who showed me the errors I made. He drew crop lines and circles with arrows pointing to the spot where the focal point should be on proofs we printed. Though some of his suggestions differed from what I wanted, his made more sense, since the changes strengthened the image. They changed from snapshots to relevant photographs. Even today the toughest part is making sure the scene is composed correctly. There are times I will leave myself some room to crop if necessary.

Digitally I don’t get wild with curve adjustments. I will admit  I have a preset that I like because it gets me back to the feel of the infamous Kodak B&W films of the 60’s, which I still use today when I can get my hands on some. A Final note, I have made some comments on most of the photos except the first. You can see my thoughts on each one.