... but that doesn't mean a photo can't be. I mean, I have personally been skeptical of black and white photography. If color photography had been invented first, would anyone have ever thought about black and white? I doubt it.

But lately I have come to appreciate the art of black and white photography and have turned more and more of my own pictures into black and white shots. What happened was that I realized black and white wasn't just black and white. Black and white can have as many different expressions as color photography. I discovered this when I installed Google's Nik Collection after Google started to offer this otherwise expensive software for free. Apart from well-known post-processing tools such as noise-reduction and sharpening, Nik Collection includes a tool called Silver Effect Pro that is basically an advanced black and white converter. And you don't even have to use the advanced options. The presets are usually enough to blow my mind and do the job for me.

So below are some of my own favorite black and white shots, all made using Silver Effect Pro, and with a feeble attempt to explain what, in my opinion, makes them work in black and white.

I think this was the picture that opened my eyes to the power of black and white. In color, a rather bleh image of a neighborhood development, in black and white... something, to me, much more powerful.

A picture I took at a Bruce Springsteen concert in Copenhagen in 2016. In this case, I think the black and white style makes an otherwise very detailed image more soothing for the brain.

This abandoned cabin in Montana was a slam-dunk, I thought. But I just couldn't get it right in post-processing due to the colors just being completely uninteresting. So what do you do? Remove the colors, of course. That hit the nail on the head.

The black and white here helped erase the difference between the car and nature and thus emphasizing nature reclaiming its materials. I could never have done that in color.

Another example of a picture that just didn't work very well in color, because the colors were just kind of blah. Still not for everyone I guess, but I like it.

I posted a color version of this in my "Best of November" post, but I actually think it works even better in black and white. Technically and artistically one I'm rather proud of.

November was a surprisingly active month for me photo-wise. I was out there with my camera three out of four weekends and actually got some pretty decent shots of the neighborhood and a little beyond.

The first three images were taken during a magic afternoon sunset at Strødam where I have posted pictures from before (yes, I trespassed again). They all feature swans, and they were all taken with my cell phone. I did bring my real camera, but the battery died before the magic started to happen in the shape of this flock of swans doing their bedtime routines. Not paying any attention to me standing right there on the shore, they went about their business of eating, chasing each other, and just floating around aimlessly in beautiful formations on the calm water.

The next picture was taken the following weekend and shows our local castle, Frederiksborg Castle. It's one of the most beautiful castles in the country and I have taken tons of pictures of it. However, it had been a while since my last visit so I figured I would find a good spot and hope for a nice sunset. I didn't quite get what I hoped for, but an orange stripe on the horizon along with dramatic clouds saved the day. I'll be back though, because there's a lot more potential in that castle than this image brings out.

Finally, on the last weekend of November, I went back to the Strøbæk area. It still amazes me how you can continue to find new spots and angles on otherwise well-known turf. I have passed this gate numerous times, but suddenly I saw what a fine composition lay hidden there. Post-processing revealed that it worked best in black and white, at least in my own opinion.

My last November fave was taken on the same day as the one above and shows a church in the tiny village of Gadevang, which is within walking distance of my house. It's a typical Danish church and really nothing special, but I think I nailed it. It's actually a stitch of two images as even my wide-angle lens couldn't contain both the foreground and the church in one frame.

It will probably be too much to hope for that December will prove as productive for me as November. Especially since the days are getting so very short.

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