Harvest time in Somerset.

Taken on Fuji colour transparency film with a Pentax Program A.

Crying out for colour, B&W never works for scenes like these.

B&W only works when the colour photo would make people think it is a B&W photo, e.g. a photo of concrete steps taken on a sunny day so that the concrete looks white and the shadow looks black. There are other examples.

The mono shots look good but a red or green combine on a field of golden wheat would be fantastic.

I'm a big Mono fan, and these are very good mono shots, but I have to agree that the colours of summer are crying out to be seen

Endorse above comments. I think the colour version posted in Gallery section does full justice to the subject.

Thanks for your comments. This is for comparison!!!

Of course, in a land a long time ago, known only to the ancient ones, all photos were B&W and seeing the colours of summer was not an option. Did people subconsciously associate appropriate colours with different items in the photo since they only ever saw B&W photos? Have we changed from 'colour is B&W with colour added' to 'B&W is colour with colour removed'?

Sorry about going philosophical on a Friday afternoon. I've just walked a couple of miles in the peak heat and my brain is boiling!

Steve

That's an interesting thought. I don't think it arises, and we see tones and shapes and colour doesn't come into it. Perhaps because for most items we don't actually know what colour exactly or perhaps because the composition and tonal values in black and white carry the message and colour is irrelevant if it's done properly?

I didn't intend to start a philosophical discussion about BW and colour. I converted to BW because I thought that it hid the fact that this rather old combine was not in pristine condition (unlike the one in the gallery which was brand new)... no deep philosophical thinking involved!!

Thanks for your comments,

Graham

I think these look great in B/W, in colour you lose the high contrast which makes the machinery stand out.