“The world is black, the world is white, it turns the day and then by night” sung by Three Dog Night.

Black and White photography has been around forever! It’s dramatic, it’s hypnotic, it’s amazing.  It’s what you need to do to get out of your automatic colored box!

Many of your DSLR’s and Point and Shoot cameras have a “creative zone” that allows you to change your settings to capture monochrome or black and white.  What is monochrome?

1. a photography or picture developed or executed in black and white or in varying tones of only one color. 2. (of a photograph or picture or a television screen) consisting of or displaying images in black and white or varying tones of only one color.

Thank you Mr. Webster.

Do you “shoot” in black and white? Or do you change your photographs on the computer?  I am guilty of the second.  I have a plug in program called Black and White Effects that I use in Photoshop, or I just take away my color saturation and create the black and white.  I also use Sepia.  Some pictures just need to be in black and white.

Old buildings seem to be a must for sepia or black and white. Landscapes with clouds, deserve to be in black and white. Channel your inner Ansel Adams!

My inner Ansel Adams, loves Multnomah Falls in Black and White!

One thing I missed out on for sure was learning how to develop film in the high school dark room.  Something I always wanted to learn. I was very active in taking the pictures for the high school year book, but I wasn’t the privileged that got to “develop” them.  Either way, photoshop and other applications for your computers or smart phones make it way easy to change your pictures!

Sometimes the results are amazing. I for one, wouldn’t want to walk this dark dreary forest alone.

When I see an old barn, building, or shack, I think of the simpler times when there was only black and white pictures.  The tin pictures were awesome!  Could you just imagine? I mean how did they develop them on tin?  Now you can upload a picture to your favorite picture ordering site and you can get it on tin. Even on glass. Hmmmm.  The choices you have!

I still love the “olden” days of black and white.  There are even programs for yours smart phone or computer that add scratches, and textures to make your pictures look even older.

If it weren’t for the fact that the cars are modern and the description on the side of the wall has espresso and cappuccino, how would you know that Mel’s Drive In on Ventura Blvd in Sherman Oaks, wasn’t around along time ago?

As I have stated in the past, I do not change all my pictures, and I only convert the ones I think need to have an added something.  Manipulated photos are not for everyone, and I hear this time and time again from many people.  Yes you can go overboard!  I get that, but I seriously try not to go overboard and over process when I do.  Sometimes, I will totally change the look of a photograph, and those are the times the hubby kind of gives the picture and me a “look” and I know he hates it!  But that just brings about my point of, its not for everyone!

And it isn’t for everything or type 0f picture either.  I added the vignette and black and white to this eagle, because the sky was just very blue and no clouds in sight.  I could have added the clouds, but no, I wanted the majestic one to be different.

These trees with the smoke, ended up being one of my most surprised best sellers  to people I knew!  One of my friends sent me a picture of her baby girl, staring at the trees in the frame. She said she always likes to stare at it!  I felt and still feel very honored! This picture resides on the East Coast in Virginia now!  It’s also in southern California as well.

This picture to me, represents a very cold windy nasty winters day!  And it was in October, but yes, it was cold and nasty.  Could you capture the same feeling in color?

To be honest, there wasn’t much color in this one to begin with, so that is why I chose it to become more dreary than it was.