A few more Philly faves

I love black and white. In many ways, I'll always prefer it to color. In some situations, you do miss out on what color brings to the table (like sunsets, for example), but in most situations, I prefer B&W. Here are a few of my better B&W images that I've taken in Philly. All images were taken with Ilford Pan-F 50 black and white film and developed by me. Negatives were scanned in on my Canoscan 9950F scanner. I altered for contrast and brightness in Photoshop CS3, just as I would have with my old darkroom enlarger. (At least I'm not wasting nearly as much paper.)

This is part of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's façade - just a tiny piece of an architecturally fascinating building. This was shot in early afternoon, which I have found to be a great time to shoot at the museum.

Canon EOS Elan 7E, Sigma 17-35mm f/2.8-4 lens, Ilford Pan-F 50 film, exposure unrecorded.

The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts is one of the crown jewels of Philadelphia, and one of its most beautiful buildings. I could spend hours and hours taking pictures there, and the best part about it is that you can - the building is open to the public seven days a week, and people are free to roam the building and take in the wonderful sights. I plan on going back this week to fill up a memory card or two.

I shot this in early afternoon when the shadows were falling at a really interesting angle on the lobby. To squeeze in all I wanted for this shot, I had to zoom back, but I couldn't go all the way to 17mm with my old Sigma lens - there was too much unacceptable distortion at the edges. This was taken at around 21mm.

Canon EOS Elan 7E, Sigma 17-35mm f/2.8-4 lens, Ilford Pan-F 50 film, exposure unrecorded.

I've often mentioned that sometimes getting a great image is simply being in the right place at the right time. This is one of those - I walked around a corner, and there was an elderly man playing the saxophone on the street. I had four pictures left on my roll, and no more film with me (another advantage of digital), and this was the best one. That's all I remember about taking this picture, unfortunately. What I'm happiest about was the way the light hits his sax. I composed and framed it as best I could, but I can't honestly say I saw the light hitting his instrument just so, but I'm happy it turned out that way.

Canon EOS Elan 7E, Sigma 17-35mm f/2.8-4 lens, Ilford Pan-F 50 film, exposure unrecorded.