Apparently the world is in color, who knew?

So every once and a while it's good to step out of your comfort zone.  Mine is clearly B&W photography.  I love everything about B&W images.  I love that they create a slight abstraction of the real world.  I love the rich gray tones you can create.  I love how easy you can create various moods.  Basically when I am photographing even with a digital camera I am seeing the world in B&W.  It's not that I am color blind, just that for some reason I have a sense for what images are going to work when converted to B&W.  There are other practical reasons, developing B&W film is very cheap so by shooting on B&W film and doing my own developing I can afford to shoot much more than if I decided to have a lab process my film.  This allows me complete control from the camera to the print.

So I hope I have convinced you that color is not my thing.  So often when I feel I need to step out of my comfort zone my first action is to shoot in color.  Now I can probably count on my fingers and toes the number of rolls of color film I have shot in my life so it is very rare that I shoot in color.  Even once I finally purchased a digital camera I have pretty much converted every image to B&W.  I find it very weird to look at the LCD screen on the digital and not seeing the image I see in my head.  I had to actually trust myself in the beginning that the image would work once I converted it :)

So for what ever reason when I went to visit my sister in San Fransisco I packed some color film and took my new Fujipet along with my trusty Holga.  I loaded the Fujipet with Color and the Holga with B&W.  Mind you I had only run 1 roll of film through the Fujipet, so not only was I using the dreaded color film, but I realy had no real feel for the camera yet and what film speed would be ideal.  I think most of us when we travel with our cameras we default to taking the cameras and film we are most comfortable with so we don't miss the chance to get some good pictures.  Strangely I have much more fun when traveling by trying totally new things, new cameras, new films, what ever.  It is freeing to allow myself to not really care if I got the shot.  When it works it seems all the more awesome because it is different from the usual look of my images.  In a way this difference from the usual look of my images can also enhance the feeling of a different place to me cementing for me the experience of visiting a new place.  When it doesn't work I don't really feel bad because I know I just need more time to figure out the new camera or film.

So here is my favorite image I created with my new camera, I hope you like it.

China Town, San Fransisco

FujiPet, Kodak Porta 400