For most of the black and white photos that I post, I shoot them in color and then convert them into black and white while editing. The shots below, though, are from the first black and white roll of film that I’ve shot, and I enjoyed the challenge of having to try and “think” in black and white—to try and previsualize what the composition would look like without color, and use that to determine whether or not I should take the shot.
This experience is a bit akin to shooting digitally with a filter on, knowing that you can’t un-filter it later, which I’ve effectively done now and then, like for these of downtown State College.
Still, everything about film, cliché or not, does feel like it demands a more deliberate amount of attention than shooting on digital (limited number of shots, cost of film, cost of developing, etc.) and I feel that played into my pace of shooting this time as well.
With this particular film, I found myself happiest with shots with a large amount of contrast in them (at least, relative to the others on the roll), like this one of the historic Brockerhoff House:
There’s a large amount of contrast between the white walls of the building and the roof tiles, and the tiles themselves have some variation of tones in them.
By contrast (pun intended), here’s a photo of another building further down the street.
I was drawn to the alternating bands of bright and dark above the windows, which I imagined would look good in black and white and which were why I took the shot. I figured that in color, those details could have gotten a bit lost, or one’s eyes would be less inclined to be drawn to them. However, I’m guessing that this shot earlier in the day (I took this at 4:30 p.m. in November) would have come out better. The lighter toned part of the building towards the roof would have popped a bit more, and perhaps the details around the windows as well. As is, these just sort of muddle together more than I’d like.
I know folks do like to push HP5 in processing, which itself results in more contrast, but for my own sake of practicing and getting used to the film, I may try to use my desire for higher contrast images as a constraint to force me to think more about lighting and composition when I shoot with this film in the future.
Here are a few others from that same afternoon:
