mrs. black and white

I've been dragging my feet a little lately with the blog, but what better way to jump right back in than with a picture of my darling Stephanie.

This isn't just ANY picture either--it's a black and white picture. With all the advancements in colour photo technology over the last 30-40 years, there's still something special about B&W, our first love! The strangely complex simplicity and sharp contrast provided by a photo void of other colours is often striking and has the ability to evoke serious emotions in people.

B&W photography has been my favourite creative outlet ever since I first dabbled with an old Russian Zenit EM my wife bought at a flea market years ago, before we were married. The vendor, a retired photographer, had been so all his life, as did his son whom he taught. In fact, his son had learned on that very same camera and he has since gone on to shoot for National Geographic. I always liked that story; it left me with the subtle impression that I TOO could someday take pictures for National Geographic and travel the world!

A lot has changed since then. I didn't even have my first 2-megapixel digital point-and-shoot Canon until a year or so after that. At that time, having a digital camera made be fairly special, because few others did. Nowadays, you can spend a tenth of the price for a camera even better than that one...and for the same price, you can get a digital SLR camera.

That's where I am now. I shoot with a Canon 20D DSLR and I still adore black and white.