Black and White Wednesdays

I really struggle with black and white conversion, so this is a great challenge for me.
Long Road to China (which sidebar, is originally an adoption blog - inspiring!) has a weekly B&W photo challenge.
This is a photo from April I recently tested my conversion skills on. I personally am drawn to how light and airy it is. I tend to go for high key conversions, either lots of white or lots of black. What do you love about black and whites?

for more great black and white photos, check out:

Alphabet Gallery: L

Managed to snag another letter for my slowly growing alphabet library. This weekend I captured "L". What do you think?

settings: 1/320, f/5.6, 400, 50mm
cropped slightly to cut out other beams, adjusted curves, converted to B&W and sharpened slightly.

Bounty of Black and White

I went for a walk yesterday through the park and took my camera with me, determined to get my creative juices flowing again. I was struck by alot of the "architecture" of the outdoors. Plus I was on the lookout for some "letters" to add to my alphabet gallery. For most of them, it seemed to suit a black and white conversion. What do you think? Are these overprocessed/overblown and/or muddy? Are any just not interesting?

A park bench:

Swing set, aka my letter "U":

a funky dome structure - looking straight up

a steel trellis, aka my letter "X"

and the crook of a tree to represent my "V":

I Heart Faces Challenge: Dramatic B&W

Another week, another great I♥Faces challenge. this time, they are looking for black and white shots that are "dramatic, moody or  sensational in their presentation". I hope you feel the one below fits the bill.

I am generally terrible at B&W conversion, so you may be asking yourself, why bother? Because I am an attention whore, and I love to show off this picture :) This was taken as part of a board photo challenge entitled "lifelines". I actually got the idea from an even earlier challenge, whereby a poster requested hand photos with inspirational words/phrases on them. She had a wonderful friend/wife/mother named Anissa Mayhew, who was battling back from a debilitating stroke. So she asked us all to "give Anissa a hand". At the time I couldn't get my photo together, and was very excited when I had the opportunity to try the technique again. (Side note: to view Anissa's back story and see the final product, go here. Bring tissues.)

For even more wonderful submissions, check out the I♥Faces website here:

Day 032: ocean wise

Took a walk to Kits beach today:

 

desaturated (I seem to be on that kind of kick don't I?), brightened with curves, upped blacks a bit.

Photo Stats:
SS 1/200
Aperture f/5
ISO 200
Focal Length 55mm

Day 029: contemplative Simon

 

Nothing very exciting. Just my first baby checking out the world. This colour cast came out very purply red. not sure why. Probably forgot to reset the white balance after yesterday's challenge

  

desaturated and then brightened with curves. May still be a little grey though, especially in the eyes. But going any brighter seems to blow out his fur. Perhaps I should try to pop just the eyes? Keeping it colour was distracting me because of all the random things behind him (floor, cord, ottoman)

Photo Stats:

SS 1/20

Aperture f/5

ISO 400

Focal Length 55mm

taken with flash and lightscoop