Old Lady with tiara

Aina, these your photos of Paris in black and white are exceptional, excellent composition and perspective correction, Brava, ciao Giangiorgio

Thanks for the compliment Giangiorgio! I adore shooting in B&W. I try to 'see' in B&W. Those Paris shots, for example: some were shot with film/negative & others were digital & shot on a day when I decided to shoot only B&W. So on a day like thats I set my camera to 'Monochrome' mode & shoot with filters in front of the lens - yellow for nice architecture shots, red to make the sky in landscapes pop more, and so on. [i have used the Cokin filter system since the 90s - really nice & easy filter holder with slide in slots that fits quickly on different lenses.] That makes for minimal post-hoc adjustment - maybe just S-curve or perhaps brightness/contrast. I prefer to do most things at the time of shooting the image. I sometimes convert some color shots that I do not like to B&W - that can make them better, but I do that only infrequently.

Thanks Aina for your very interesting and very thorough explanation , ciao Giangiorgio

Hi Aina,

 

I fully agree with Giangiorgio; your Paris photos are remarkable, both the B&W and the color images. The composition is tight, but inclusive. I like the mild contrast and tones that go with the subject very well. Kind regards, Vincent

Thank you Vincent, for your very kind remarks. I guess I can say that these photos have been shot with love. Paris is 'sans doute' my most favorite city in the entire world. Many of those B&W shots I have posted on PhotoNet were shot years ago - some with film & negative, others with an earlier digital camera. Work commitments have required me to go there many times. Indeed, a recent work commitment gave me the good fortune of living there for 6 months in 2018. I LOVE using colored filters to play with B&W while I am taking pics. Post-hoc processing e.g. Photoshop, just cannot reproduce those same effects... I say that as someone who has used Photoshop since its first version many years ago. Since I also study how the brain sees, I am very sensitive to these low-level features. They really matter! - Aina