Stills

Certainly, the way the ripples hug the dark outline is an attractive effect. It's strange that the light area in the foreground looks as though it is water on a road and yet there are plenty of indications elsewhere that it is a pond.

This is very much summer rain - dark tree outlines and rain falling vertically and not being blown sideways. It would be quite fun to try and guess the trees but I won't.
 

Lots of interest in this one, surface plants, water rings, and is that gravel in the shallows at the bottom? All this on that black to white canvas of reflected trees and sky. It's that background that really makes this one for me. There's little graduation in the change, stark deep black to shallow light in a virtual instant but with a complexity to the shape of the dividing line.

I've found recently that the more I play with colour in my images the more I appreciate and turn towards black and white. I haven't decided quite why that is yet (pointers to essays appreciated). I have an image of a small forest clearing that I've been playing with. It's not very good and the merits should lie in the golden sunlight, browns and greens but I keep being drawn to the complex black and white mayhem of the scene.
 

John-Jo, I am sure that more dedicated b/w users could give you more solid data for your "essay". My advice is this: on certain occasions colour has intrinsic qualities that can not be replaced by b/w. However, there are many subjects and colour combinations that are better served by the relative austerity and discipline of b/w. The third category is the either/or: it is then up to you to make up your mind or (as I have done on a couple of occasions) have a copy of both! For me, there is no hard and fast rule and it seems to work pretty well.
 

John E, thanks for the comment. Just to broaden this a little (I hope auspicious doesn't mind) I've usually approached photography from first principles. My thoughts are that if one spends too much time absorbing the thoughts of others there's less likelyhood of anything different happening (not that this has produced results). This has often led me to quick derrision of the work of others, Harry Callahan for instance. I didn't get his work at all until I forced myself to read the thoughts of others which led me to appreciate his work in the context of the times that he was making it. There was a hard working man. Black and white photography has stumped me, which is never good when you're the kind of person who is quick to judge and conclude. Sometimes I catch myself thinking that a white canvas, half painted in black would be just lovely. It's just plain silly and I can't work it out at all.
 

I too hope that Auspicious doesn't mind - I misread your essay statement John-Jo. No, I can't point you to any essays but if you're working from first principles...?! Now you've stumped me about how you relate to b/w. I grew up with b/w and can't envisage a world where one didn't use monochrome in that way. But going back to your first statement relating to the "complex black and white mayhem of the scene", it would seem that you want b/w to do more for you than merely represent a scene in a particular way. Looks like you will have to do a lot more exploring and trying!
 

This was an HP5 negative so I can't show a colour version. It was a low intensity colour day. This scene would have been a mixture of greenish browns and brownish greens.

I did up the contrast a bit, but essentially there were only the two tones in the photo. This was the third of three negatives - I was learning to predict those rings!

John E: this is at Inverewe, so the trees were probably exotics
 

I have taught myself to ignore colour after nearly a year of shooting black and white. I now see in contrasts, shape, form and texture. I tried a roll of colour film recently in Okinawa on vacation. 36 bad examples of the use of colour. I am not a proponent of converting colour to B&W because it doesn't hold the mustard in its initially capture medium. However, I did find this a valuable exercise when starting off in B&W.

Auspicious has captured my four requirements in this interesting shot. A pleasing meandering diagonal (up to a point), textures atop and below and just enough mystery to keep you interested.

Whatever is creeping in top right encourages my eye to jump from the top highlight peak to relative safety. If I continue my journey along the meandering diagonal to a slighly lower end point it provides a lot more interest...so perhaps remove top right object?
 

akikana: I so very nearly got rid of the top right on first processing this (It doesn't crop out very well, but it can be cloned out successfully given the lack of detail nearby).

Prompted by your comment, and now I am used to the shot, it seems obvious. The top right has to go. It changes the balance of the whole picture in interesting ways.
 

Akikana - I suspect that Auspicious would disagree with you about converting colour to b/w! Your comment is interesting: it does show how much we put ourselves into a camp. I wrote a bit on John-Jo's blog so I won't repeat myself other than to say that I cannot imagine not having colour; indeed, if, hypothetically, I had to go back to film, I think that I would be unable to make up my mind which film to use. Maybe two cameras would be the answer. You're right that using conversion from colour is a good learning process and it enabled me to come back into b/w after some 20 years away. What it has further led to is the ability to see some shots in b/w ahead of committal, leaving the luxury of choosing later. I agonised over my wooded hillside shot as the subtle spring colours shouldn't really be overridden with a b/w filter, but the latter more than holds its own (IMHO!).
 

JohnE: I find that if I've conceived of a picture in monochrome then seeing it in colour (from a digital capture or a colour neg) is confusing and distracting. When working in digital I go to some lengths to avoid ever seeing the file in colour.
 

Auspicious - having just read the article on your site about the b/w workflow for the E-330 I appreciate how much it means to you to work through in b/w. Meanwhile my position remains as in the piece I wrote on John-Jo's site!