Simplicity of B&W

The other day I thought I was experiencing a strange phenomenon. Standing outside, looking upward, I saw this huge blue mass with this incredibly bright light source shining on me that nearly blinded me. But then someone reminded me that we have a sky and a sun. We have been under fog and haze here for so long that the beauty practically overwhelmed me. I hurried up the canyon during my lunch hour and took a few quick images. I had my good clothes on, so I couldn’t get down and wallow in the snow to get anything creative.

Anyway, there was a discussion on the forum awhile back about the merits of black and white photography as opposed to color photography. I want to share a couple of pictures that I took that day, not because they are great compositions or because they are good photographs. I used some of the techniques in Richard Lynch’s "Hidden Powers" book to convert them to black and white, and I think the strong shadows and the lack of color add a lot of appeal to the pictures.

The clouds and the storminess have returned. But when we get another clear day I’m going to put on my grubby old winter clothing and see if I can get some good photographs. In the meantime, I wanted to show these pictures and put in a vote for experimenting with black and white once in a while.

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