Black and White Gold

Day 14: DarknessI had not planned to do a black and white photo challenge in July, but on the first day, when I was post-editing a potential self-portrait using the random button in the Hipstamatic app, I suddenly hit upon this combination, and immediately thought: YES, THAT’S IT!

This black and white film is not completely devoid of colour, but is only desaturated to a high enough degree so that strong colour comes through visibly, but light colours mostly wash out. The film also haves a random dark vignette in adjacent corners which can look bad on light photos, but on shadowed images it can work well, and also particularly nicely with the Tinto 1884 lens, which is based on antique Tintype cameras and creates a shallow depth of field. On the other hand, the Triple Crown flash always brings sharp definition and contrast, and in this instance, it does reduce the Tinto blur a pleasing amount without any additional editing.

Day 28: LiquidBy chance I photographed the man serving me at the coffee merchant – I buy Columbian dark roast beans – for my ‘darkness’ subject, and then exactly two weeks later for ‘liquid’ I photographed it percolating through my Italian espresso pot. I call it black gold.

Check out July’s full gallery here.