More Glorious Black and White

Some more images in Black and White. I am so ready to get a film SLR, and a polaroid. I think that would make me far less snap-happy.


These fish are in a fountain found in Cranbrook, MI. They had great repeating patterns and I really just used the black and white because the contrast was far too much in unflattering colors.

This is definetly one of my favorite photos. Not so much for the actual content of the photo itself (not underselling it, I think its a great pic that breaks quite a few rules of composition), but because of the adventure of getting here. This is an abandoned apartment complex...or project, found off of Lafayette road. 4 or 5 very tall brick buildings that have seen better days. The entrance lobby was completely blown apart, no windows, drywall rotting from the ceiling...I really should have taken more pictures of the place itself. Anyways it is about a 15 story hike up some very enjoyable stairs, in which the entire time you are on your toes as air blows through the gaping holes and once-windows causing cabinets to creek, papers to bristle, and objects to topple over on every floor. And just before your reach the roof, you find some lovely artwork stating things such as "Proceed and Die" or "Go No Further", or my personal favorite due to the Boondocks Saints reference "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here". It truly was a heart-racing event. After a good half hour spent on the roof top capturing everything south, we proceeded to rush back down stairs before we ran the risk of trespassing (really was not feeling any interaction with the cops). Thankfully there were 2 separate flights of stairs, because we head footsteps pounding up the stairs towards us so we bailed on a high floor to the other set, rushed down out the building and to my car.

This is a very dramatic picture that I have to admit is not completely honest. The statue is from Cranbrook, in which there are 5 or 6 of these characters in different positions, over a fountain. The sky is from me going to the bank, and there happened to be heavy overcast but a large set of light rays streaking through. I really did not expect the sky images to turn out so well, as I shot them from the window of my car and spent little to no time composing the shots, not to mention the buildings on the bottom of the image were extremely boring. Anyways upon bringing them up I thought there was a possibility of making a great image out of it and here it is. I love how perfectly the statues hands lines up with bright spots in the sky, sends a really powerful message. Here are the images that I used



Here is the Metro City Station HDR that I did, and previously posted, in Black and White. This is the first image I used the Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 plugin for CS4 on. I really like the results. This by the way is the abandoned train station in downtown Detroit that serves no purpose other than for people to try to get into, or for people to look back and remember Detroit in its golden days.