I have loved black and white photography for quite some time now. My black and white photography journey began with film and the notorious Ansel Adams Zone System back in college. At that time we had to make the choice of the film we would use before ever picking up our camera. The choice of film was huge. Would it be color or black and white and what ISO would we need? I remember getting that wrong and not being able to get the shot, as a student of course, because I did not have the light needed for the film I chose. A film I really loved was Kodak Tri-X because it had the capability to be pushed by 3 stops or more with wonderful results. The "hero shot" here is a portrait of a neighbor child and a family best friend to my kids, Jessica. This image is still one of my favorites even after all of this time. I photographed this image using Ilford FP4 film and the best camera of all time for beautiful black and white capture, a Pentax 6x7. I used the Pentax 6x7 camera for most of my portrait work, including a personal project creating images of animals in the shelter with The SPCA of North Texas. I still have the camera along with a 4x5 sheet film camera and my very first 35 mm film cameras too! Now I create black and white images digitally with good results but would be happy for the opportunity to pull out my Pentax and give that a go. Would I remember how to load the film? I got pretty fast, even using it in low light shelters. No auto-focus either! The detail using the Pentax 6x7 camera is unmatched, in my opinion.

The following images are some of my favorite black and white images, some new and some old. That is one of the wondrous things about black and white imagery, it stays timeless.