50 Shades of Grayscale

Most, if not all, of the shots here, you've likely seen peppered through my other projects, which are often based on the location, rather than a theme. This time, I thought I'd bring together a small sampling of my favourites. While there are definitely more than 50 shades of gray here, I hope you've forgive my temptation to create my project title and that you'll still enjoy the photos.

There is something special about shooting - or seeing - in black and white. In my early photography days, I shot a lot of black and white film because I could process it myself, and because it was what was called for in college. But I also liked the "feel" of it. Seeing the scene in front of you in grayscale calls for a different sensitivity, an alternate perception of reality. Color is gone. Tonal contrast, shape, pattern, texture, become so much more important to telling your story in b/w.

These days, while I can still see in black and white, my photos don't start that way. I use Lightroom or Photoshop (or both) to take what I "saw" in front of me and convert it to my grayscale reality.

Mobile apps like Hipstamatic and Instagram (among many others) bring this capability to smart phones as well, and I admit to shooting my fair share of grayscale images using the aforementioned apps. But you won't find those images in this collection; I'll save those for another project, I think.

The inspiration for this project stemmed from a recent Twitter challenge sent to me. The #5daysofBlackandWhite challenge. Each day, I had to both nominate someone new for the challenge, along with posting one of my images. As I scoured my hard drive for just the right image, it occurred to me that I didn't really have any central showcase of this type of work. Well, needless to say, I had to remedy that issue.

Most, if not all, of the shots here, you've likely seen peppered through my other projects, which are often based on the location, rather than a theme. This time, I thought I'd bring together a small sampling of my favourites. While there are definitely more than 50 shades of gray here, I hope you'll forgive my temptation to create my project title and that you'll still enjoy the photos.

Banff