In Contrast…

I first became interested in photography in the age of 35mm film, well before digital cameras.  Back then, I had access to a good darkroom (at university) and I did a fair bit of processing and printing of my black and white films.  After leaving uni, I lost the access to the darkroom and didn’t, like any new graduate, have either the money or space to set one up or time to use it.  So I’ve never gone back.  But I really used to enjoy watching the magic of chemistry reveal the images in baths of developer and fixer.  

Of course, with digital, the darkroom is all on a computer and happens much faster.  I’ve been doing a bit of experimenting and, using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2.  I’ve reprocessed number of images that appear elsewhere on this site to see if they tell a different story when stripped back to this essence of light and dark.  The monochrome versions have a quite different impact.  I like it and I’ll be doing more.