January 2024

[Trailblazer]

Happy Monday New Year!

 

[Gerald Cafferty]

 

[Jon Eckman]

 

[Bill J Boyd]

 

[Gerald Cafferty]

 

[Jon Eckman]

1-7-2024

 

[Gerald Cafferty]

Jubilee Pool, Penzance.

 

[Mickeyess]

Fort Worden Lighthouse, Port Townsend, Washington. View over Dungeness Bay.

 

[Jon Eckman]

1-9-2024

 

[Mickeyess]

I love this shot! Super composition, leading lines, strong contrast, lighting. Well done @

 

[Jon Eckman]

Thanks Mickey.

 

[Papa Tango]

Hercules Resting
Nikon D7100; Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-300mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR

 

[Jon Eckman]

 

[Papa Tango]

@Jon Eckman isn't it interesting that something rather ordinary and drab can come alive in monochrome...

 

[Jon Eckman]

Indeed it is! Black and white has found its way into my thinking from the decades of film I have gone through (most of it in bulk roll form), and I feel fortunate to have experienced the journey.

 

[Mickeyess]

Pat, John:
I love black and white! I believe that capturing the tones, the areas of light and shadow as well as composition are far better perceived in black and white in a majority of cases. I look at almost all of my photos in color and black and white.
There are of course many where the brilliance color is essential, e.g. flowers.
I recently grabbed my old Canon T70 SLR and bought some color film. The lab that processed the film sucked. I'll buy some black and white film next.
As you stated "isn't it interesting that something rather ordinary and drab can come alive in monochrome..."

 

[Papa Tango]

Somewhere back in the stone age of photography, I took a Fred Picker Zone VI workshop. One of the artifacts given at the beginning was this:

THE B&W VIEWING FILTER

Zone VI B&W viewing filter... Susan and I have used a Zone VI B&W viewing filter for years. This nifty little round device not only shows you the relative tonal relationship between different areas of a scene, it also acts as a framing device.

www.jbhphoto.com

I still occasionally use mine, but it seems to have slipped into a travel bag--and I am still searching. It was a helpful tool to break me away from Kodachrome/Fujichrome/Cibachrome and the infatuation with saturated colors. Now mind you, if one remembers these technologies of the 70s and early 80s--the results were wonderous. I even invested in a CPP-2...

But I started with mono. First Polaroid via a 125, and later with an Argus C3 with Pan-X in Microdol 1:1... Those were the days.

I was taught through experience to see things as they would be rendered in BW. I learned to select developers, papers, and toners that gave me what I saw in my head. That was all nearly 60 years ago.

A well-imagined and thought-out post-process monochrome image can be the most expressive and emotional of all.

I look at Jon's image and the shadow up on the upper left evokes a mystery of whether this is a person--or merely something structural in the background. The best images keep us guessing and imagining. Monochrome has the power to evoke that on a very deep level...

And as long as we are about roots and beginnings, here is an excellent cover take on an ELP classic by Eduardo Arzola and a worldwide crew (props to Greg Lake, the 70s, and great B&W films with mythical papers and chemistry:

 

[Mickeyess]

Interesting story about the B&W viewing filter. I've never heard of them and may search for one now that I know they exist. Unlike you I started with color and only developed a minimal amount of B&W film at a lab that was open to me. Later, all of my work was color. With my DSLR's I started playing with B&W again and find it to be wonderful. I still have a lot of post tricks to learn.
Jon's picture is an excellent one. I see other photographers that excel with B&W and get inspiration from them all.
Finally, nice musical video.

 

[Cascadilla]

Rather than buying that viewing filter from Zone VI I had my local camera store (remember those?) order me a couple of Kodak Wratten # 90 gels and mounted them in Gepe glass slide mounts. For 4x5 I masked off a part of the filter so that I had the same aspect ratio as 4x5 and drilled a hole in the mount for a neck strap. I still have the 4x5 one--it lives in a pocket of the cloth case I made for my Toyo 45 F many years ago when I used it a lot as a field camera despite its 9# weight. I doubt you can still buy those Wratten gel filters new any more, but mine is pushing 40 years old and still looks OK.

 

[Mickeyess]

I searched for Zone VI viewing filters and believe they are no longer made. They are available (used) on the Internet for about $90.