San Francisco in Black & White

It was part walk and part photo safari across nearly six miles of San Francisco beginning in Union Square, continuing through China Town, over to North Beach and ultimately down to Pier 39 and then back along the Embarcadero and the financial district. While I was walking Napa and Santa Rosa counties were burning and San Francisco's air was thick and smoky.

I spent four plus years of my life shooting black and white photos every day back in college working for the campus paper. I loved black and white and turned my nose up at color photography. If you had asked my 1980s self why I shunned color, I would have said that it was the dark room that made the photo and you couldn't be as creative with color in the dark room. That was true then, but today's dark room is called Photoshop which offers a wide range of tools that allow you to manipulate light, color and a myriad of other controls far beyond anything I could have ever done in the dark room.

After a long gap in taking photos, I started shooting in color and getting good at Photoshop. My color-challenged eye loved how an average picture could pop with a few adjustment. I'm always eager to pump up the "saturation" delivering postcard like colors even if they may misrepresent the reality of the scene.

I actually haven't through too much about black and white ever since. But, with the smoke in the air and the colors muted while I could have fixed it later, I decided that this day would be black and white day. While bright colors work wonders at making me happy, muting those colors into a black and white image puts me in a pensive mood. I enjoyed the change of pace.

October 10, 2017

© Greg Harris, 2017

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