B&W Photography

345/365 - Untitled a photo by Wayne-K on Flickr.

I majored in Aerospace Engineering and for my senior project, my partner and I studied the exhaust dispersion patterns of different nozzle shapes. The theory was an oval/elliptical shaped nozzle would disperse the exhaust faster than a round nozzle. So, what does this have to do with B&W photography? Well, we needed to take pictures of the cross-section of the exhaust flow in order to determine the dispersion pattern. We used B&W film to capture the pattern and developed the film ourselves. I'm not quite sure we captured or processed the film correctly because the final photos didn't come out quite right....and we got a "C" on the project.

So, that was my introduction to B&W photography. I'm sure Ansel Adams would be proud....well, probably not. Despite my failures in my early days of B&W film photography, I've developed an interest in B&W photography. I've even considered buying an old, Nikon S2 rangefinder camera. However, if I ever shot B&W film seriously, I think I'd want to build my own darkroom so I could create the final product according to my personal vision.

I'm reading "After the Photo-Secession: American Pictorial Photography, 1910-1955" and I love the grainy, moody, B&W photos of the period. In the upcoming weeks, I plan on creating a few B&W images...perhaps a few inspired by the great B&W photographers of the past.