Originally posted by ausmoose Really amazing work everyone. You all set a great example for the rest of the Pentax community! I find B&Ws extremely tough, so maybe I'll learn something from all your great photos. It's very hard to choose a winner amongst these awesome photos, but I think I've chosen my winner. Though any of them deserve to win IMO.
In the days when I did film photography - and had my own darkroom - I did nothing but black & white. Without the benefit - or distraction, depends on how you look at it - of colour, everything comes down to line and shading. There's something almost abstract about B&W. Since the world is always in colour, a B&W photo is never going to look like the subject originally photographed. You have to see the form and line of a scene, or person etc. in a quite different way. And with film, of course, you have the grain as well.
I chose number 14. I love the stark simplicity of it; and yet it takes a remarkable eye to see the possibilities of it - and distinct skill to obtain just the right balance against the setting sun. With colour there would be a temptation to balance out the light and shade to give due importance to the foreground. Here, everything is, quite literally, black and white, with the sky holding the balance between the two.
Wishing you well,
William