My first photography love

Photography as a passion was, for me, first a chemical thing. I started out in 7th or 8th grade with a shiny new Canon AE-1 Program (it belonged to the school) and as many rolls of Tri-X Pan film as I could shoot, develop, and print. I had developer and fixer in my blood for a time, I suspect. It was powerful stuff. (I wonder if I smelled bad. Maybe that's why my social life stunk (accidental pun-- sorry).) Loads of fun, too. Of course, black and white was the only real option for most of us. One school in our district had a color darkroom, but I was never very impressed by the color prints they made. Leave the color to the professional labs. B&W was not only fun, but doable--- really doable.

The advent of digital cameras changed things for most of us, of course. No longer do we need to own darkroom equipment and chemicals (not to mention a DARK room). A few clicks of the mouse, and our pics can be B&W. (I have a friend who not only still does darkroom/chemical B&W work, but also uses a pinhole camera for some of her best work. She did buy a digital camera recently, but she's a hands-on, darkroom junkie at heart, I think.) All of the pics from today's post were shot digitally and then converted. There are many, many ways to convert digital pics from color to B&W. These are all pretty straightforward, however. I own some Photoshop actions that convert them in fun, funky ways, but these are mostly straight conversions.

I post these today as a homage to what I see (and I think I always have seen) as the "coolness" factor of "seeing" in B&W. A "good" B&W shot, for me, has good contrast, a wide range of tones, even gradations (where called for), and a certain sharpness. I don't know what you will think of these, but they represent a range of things that I find both interesting and fun.

What makes a photograph work for you? What appeals to you? What draws you in? How does B&W figure in to the mix?