Gray Sky or Blue?

While hanging out at a local booksellers coffee shop, I paged through a British photo magazine that featured an outstanding portfolio of black and white images. I love looking at these types of features as they can often provide inspiration for my own work. One point made by the writer of the accompanying article was how a mundane color image can be taken to another level by converting it to black and white. Seems almost counter intuitive, doesn't it? A color image should tickle the optical nerves, but in fact B&W can do the same and sometimes better.

After finishing my coffee I headed home and started a search through my files for color photos that might benefit from a conversion to gray tones. One of the first candidates was "Reach for the Sky". Taken this past autumn at Bald Mountain, the starkness of the branches offers quite a contrast against the intense blue sky. Not a bad color image, what struck me was how it took on a much more ominous tone when converted to black and white. The process of making B&W photos from color originals can be an enjoyable experience in and of itself since you never know how the conversion may affect the image. Sometimes the results can be surprising.