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My background is in chemistry so you can probably imagine that when I first got into photography forty years ago I really enjoyed working with all of the chemicals — developer, stop bath, and fixer — and watching my images magically appear right before my eyes in the darkroom. At that time I had a Minolta SRT-101 and shot mostly Kodak Tri-X, Kodak Panatomic-X, and Ilford Pan F. After developing the film in a closet I would set up my Besseler 23C enlarger in the bathroom and wait for night to fall so I could make prints.

I got into using color slide film because I spent a lot of time camping and hiking and, despite Ansel Adams stunning images, I related to nature more in the world of color than in black and white. Shooting transparencies also allowed me to easily share my photos with family and friends (at least with the ones who were able to stay awake through my slide shows). In an attempt to not totally abandon black and white, I bought a second camera body so I could carry slide film and b/w film with me at the same time. That got to be tiring after a while. Not knowing what I wanted in what medium, I kept switching back and forth to cover them both. I eventually just concentrated on using slide film, almost exclusively Kodachrome, may it rest in peace.

Digital photography is great because I can take all my photos in color and decide later which I might want to print as b/w images. Out of habit, however, I find that I still see mostly in color. So, just for fun I dug out my very old b/w negatives and ran some through the scanner. The two photos below are details from a 1936 DeSoto that I happened upon one rainy day.

By the way, if the world were black and white, do you think someone would have invented color photography?

(Click on any photo to enlarge, then use arrows to scroll through the images.)