Digital BW
Leica M8 @320 iso, digital bw conversion.
Today I did a digital black and white conversion experiment, workflow Lightroom and Photoshop. I used a difficult raw file, shot in harsh light. The result is not bad but the process not very rewarding. Shadows are nice but the highlights are just not the same as on an analogue print. Currently I am building a new darkroom in my garden barn. I moved at the end of 2010 to a new home and don’t have a suitable place in the house. I really look forward to the hands on analogue process again of making prints. It is beautiful and very rewarding to hold a well made analogue print in your hands. Yes, digital gives lots of possibilities and the dynamic range of the sensor is impressive, however photography is a craft of feeling and passion from the heart, in my opinion the old fashioned process has a lot of soul. To me it is not a matter of what is better, but about the flow of image making. Loading a film is a magical moment. Shooting with film is a completely different feeling to me, the amount of images taken is a lot less, but the amount of keepers definitely not.
