Color or black and white

When I first started out, I was only interested in color. Why would anyone post in black and white I would ask myself. But as I became more interested in photography and more interested in nudes, I started to understand how powerful a simple black and white photo was. When we strip away the color, we can concentrate more on the body and I have become an admirer of black and white photos. Photos like that found on some of the blogs I have linked are very erotic and sensual and this is done without color.

This is a simple shot made in a hotel. It was lit by a single 60 inch umbrella fired from a canon 550 speedlight. The 60 inch umbrella gave very soft light and was placed close to the model. I converted to black and white using actions found in an action set I downloaded called blanco y negro. It has a number of actions that you can try that emulates different black and white film. This shot was converted using Ilford Pan F action found there. It is a free download (just Google) and has a number of different looks that you can obtain.

I like the simplicity of this photo and felt it worked better in black and white. Besides the conversion to black and white, very little else was done.

Now this post wouldn't be complete without some rambling by myself. I'm lucky in the sense that my boss resides over 5,000 miles away and it takes him two days to get here. I'm also lucky that he is actually a good person to work with (and no he doesn't read this blog so I'm not just saying that). But when he comes (which is usually for a week) it is early morning to night work and then when I come home, I need to catch up with my regular work. But I wouldn't trade it for the world.

In two more days will be the big song/dance festival here for Christmas. I looking forward to taking some photos of the event. On Friday the kids will dance so looks like a busy week leading up towards Christmas. I am leaving you with one more post of the prior festival for you to look at. For those living in the snow and ice right now, take care of yourselves. It is a chilly 83 degrees outside right now here.