It's been a very long time since I worked in b&w photography. In fact, I haven't done it since I first took up photography back in 1987. At the time it was still a film only era, of course, and I was only interested in shooting b&w film. Colour had no appeal to me at all. I joined a photo club and had a makeshift darkroom in the spare room of my London flat where I developed my own b&w film and did my own enlarging and print processing. It was a very expensive hobby which I couldn't keep up for very long, so I was delighted when digital photography came about: now, all of a sudden, photography was free once you had your picture taking equipment and a computer; no more endless, hefty spending on film, chemicals and photo paper! However, shooting with a digital camera I quickly realised it was hard, if not impossible, to achieve the same quality b&w results as shooting on film. On the other hand, digital photography saw a boom in colour photography; everyone seemed to share just colour photos on the internet. Colour was something new to try my hand at, so I started thinking and shooting in terms of colour. I still tried to edit my photos in b&w as well, but colour versions seemed more effective almost invariably. So for many years I virtually forgot about b&w and shot exclusively in colour.
My desire to start creating b&w images again was born out of two things: the first is my recent decision to focus my efforts solely on mood photography, and b&w medium is perfect for creating mood. The absence of colour really helps you draw the attention to the atmosphere and mood; and secondly, I always like to make improvements in my work and learn new things about photography and I feel that converting colour digital images into b&w provides a great scope for making a progress in my work.
So here is a first handful of selected images I took recently/not long ago that I thought would look good converted to black & white. Most of them I haven't shared before at all and one or two I shared as colour images.
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| Upper Ponden Farm, Stanbury Moor |
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| Three Old Wooden Chairs, Haworth |
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| Lake District Sheep |
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| Reading Spot, Haworth |
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| Brontë Parsonage, Haworth |
Sepia, with its old photo look, is part of monochrome photography I am also eager to experiment with.
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| Wycoller Village, Lancashire |
I always like to view other photographers' work; in fact I think it's very important to do that as a photographer, but I find that the longer I am doing photography the harder it is to see photos that really move me. But just recently I have seen some very beautiful, heavily desaturated, "almost black & white" images that did give me that inner glow and made me want to try the post processing technique on some of my images. I do like just a hint of colour in these images; I think it adds to the feel of the subject in the image.
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| Branwell's room, Brontë Parsonage |
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| Earnshaw Room, Ponden Hall |
This year for my birthday I got a most amazing gift from a dear friend - a gorgeous vintage wooden writing slope. It is special also because it comes from a great gift shop in Haworth,
Number 71, run by mutual friends. Of course, a still life image was in order very soon!
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| Still Life With Vintage Writing Slope |
I am not saying I will now be creating b&w images only. I will merely try and include them in my work as well. Not every image looks best in b&w and I am hoping to get better at seeing and understanding tonal ranges and deciding if a scene will look better in colour or b&w.
I bought an interesting, concise online b&w digital photography
guide and am looking forward to seeing how I can apply the tips to my themes and style of work.
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