In the early 80s when I started photography, I shot completely in black and white. I had my own little temporary dark room that I’d set up in my parent’s laundry room. I would develop my own film, and print my own photos. I had all the chemicals and my own enlarger. It was a pretty cool setup and I printed hundreds of prints over the years.

I’ve been taking a lot of photos lately. They’ve been completely in color. Tonight I decided to go through some of them and use the computer to convert them to black and white. I adjusted the contrast on them as well. It’s amazing what you can do with a computer these days. If I had had a computer with this power then, I would have thousands of photos to show. Right now I have a big binder with all my black and white negatives. I don’t use them anymore but keep them around in case I ever want to return to print film and my own processing. For now, processing my photos on the computer is much faster and I’m able to control things a lot easier. It was so easy to choose the photos I wanted, convert them to black and white, and adjust the contrast to create some dramatic effects. I only worked on a few photos but plan to do more in the future.