In the batch of photos I posted last month, I mused that some shots would've been better in black & white. Black & white is my preferred medium, and it was easy when all I had to do was slap a roll of black & white film into a camera. With digital, the default is color and I don't have the talent or skill to use the "black & white mode" and have things come out satisfactorily or even workable in post-production. The reason behind those shots is that I was just shooting how I always did, looking at form and composition and not thinking how color might make them mundane and pedestrian. Adding that color dimension back to reality and it's one dimension back to ordinary. 

But that got me thinking and recalling hearing that for digital black & white, it's better to shoot in color, emphatically not in the camera's black & white mode, and remove the color in post. I was always closed-minded about that, feeling that if I was shooting in color, I was seeing and thinking in color. That's not black & white! Closed-minded, I tell you.

But for December, I thought why not at least give it a shot? Shoot with my little digital point and shoot with the intent that the final image will be black & white. I'm still figuring out the best way to remove color and choosing which method I like best. As a baseline, I use GIMP's basic desaturate function and then adjust contrast and brightness, which is standard for me. I'm experimenting with another function in GIMP called "mono mixer" which removes the color, but then you can adjust red, blue and green values as represented in black & white tonalities. I currently have no idea what I'm doing with that, I'm pretty much floundering haphazardly hoping for serendipity. The color controls don't work like filters do with black & white, and I haven't figured out the logic in adjusting them. I don't know if one adjustment for one color may be cancelling out another adjustment I did with another. As for results, sometimes I like the straight desaturation, sometimes I like the mono mixed version; so far almost 50-50. I have no idea what I'm doing with green in mono mixer, but in general I like the tonality of foliage I get when using mono mixer. But that doesn't mean anything because I simply have no idea what I'm doing.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1:52 p.m. - The Living Mall died at the end of November. Those cars at the base of the sphere don't belong there and probably belong to workers or owners orchestrating removal of remaining contents.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1:45 p.m. - The (dead) Living Mall from the other side. The sidewalks surrounding the mall have all been fenced up.

2:33 p.m. - Across Civic Blvd. from The Living Mall is the Taiwan Railways workshop. It's no longer functional and I think they're trying to turn it into a museum/park. If the timing fell into place, The Living Mall could have survived by integrating this entire area into something like Huashan 1914 Cultural Park. The railway workshop is adjacent to Songshan Eslite Spectrum (behind me) and the refurbished grounds of a tobacco factory transformed into a cultural/creative arts center. A footbridge should have connected The Living Mall with the cultural park over Civic Blvd., and the trees outside The Living Mall should've been removed creating an open plaza that would allow proper appreciation for the architecture (which the footbridge also would've done). There was a lot of "wow" potential in this area. I'm sure timing was the least of why it couldn't happen.

4:10 p.m. - Holiday spirit, Songshan Eslite Spectrum. Buildings of the former tobacco factory-now-arts center in the background.

4:15 p.m. - Meeting up. I shot a series so I know they were meeting up.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2:25 p.m. - Taiwan supports Hong Kong against Mainland China's Communist Party, Keelung riverside bikeway. 

2:37 p.m. - The new park I discovered last month along the Keelung River.

3:10 p.m. - A mall/business complex across from Nangang Software Park MRT station on the brown line. Personally I'm not very impressed by it because of the confusing floor plan (effects of aging, no doubt) and it doesn't even seem to have a proper name to refer it by. Still it seems to be fairly popular on weekends, more so than The Living Mall was in the past however many years. 

MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2:17 p.m. - Keelung River. This was pretty in color (as was the previous pic), but this is what black & white was about for me. It doesn't matter if it's pretty in color, if I'm committed to black & white, I'm sticking to the black & white version. With film I never thought 'oh this would've been pretty in color'.

2:18 p.m. - Actually two bridges in this shot. Chenggong Bridge with the supports in the river and Huandong Expressway with the arches.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 3:24 p.m. - Sixth floor, Taipei Public Library, Sanmin branch.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2:27 p.m - Yanshou Park No. 3, across from Taipei Public Library, Minsheng branch.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 26, 3:33 p.m. - Just architecture of unusual character (AOUC) amidst Taipei's endless, monotonous sprawl of unexceptional low-rises (one of which I live in).