I know I said I was declaring bankruptcy on all my 2024 photos, but I saw this little photoset and it jived with something I was thinking the other day, namely, why don’t I do black and white any more? It used to be a big part of my practice, but then someone told me digital black and white wasn’t real, and I kind of was buying everything they told me wholesale (a lot of it was very good and helpful) so I basically just haven’t done if for the last sixish years. I’ve done some film black and white and enjoyed it, but no digital.
All that to say, I think there is a time and place for it. Like, I understand what they were saying, that it goes against the essential quality of the thing, but also one of the essential qualities, for me, is the flexibility a raw file has once I get it into lightroom. In some ways digital black and white is better than film or a monochrome sensor, because I can use color filters after the fact to realize tonal control (oldheads will know this as the Zone System).
These specific photos were Dia de los Muertos 2024, the parade part in the mission. I showed up a little late and didn’t stay super long, it was cold and I wasn’t feeling super sure of myself. The light wasn’t super great, a mix of sodium arc and tungsten that doesn’t expose well and colors just look bad. This is part of why they sat there for such a long time. But tonight, I decided to try them in black and white, almost in passing, and the quick conversion was enough to get me to do a little more work on them, get them to a bloggable state.
