Tap-a-Keg, a Hell of a Joint: Square-format B&W

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The 2-1/4x2-1/4" square format is wonderful. It is emerging as my favorite film format of all. I took this with my brand new Yashica Mat 124G twin lens reflex in Spring 1986. It was a bright Saturday in my nabe at West 76th St. in NYC and I went out to see how sharp an image I could get with a small aperture in the then brand-new world (to me) of medium format. I set out to make a sharpness test and ended up with one of my most popular, if not my most popular, image ever. The Tap-a-Keg, truly a Hell of a Joint, was a great bar where people in the nabe let it all hang out. Italo's Pizza right next door was also great. Now, there's a Bang & Olufsen showroom where the bar was and a Starbucks instead of the pizza place. Tri-X, exposure  unrecorded, probably f16 at 125th or 250th of a second. Handheld.

Bikeguy, 3rd Ave., NYC

At Left - Bikeguy, 3rd. Avenue, NYC

Copyright Eric Rudolph all rights reserved

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I had a mini-project, shooting fast NYC bicyclists in action near my old office at 3rd. Avenue and 48th St. The photos were all boring. So I ditched the point-and-shoot and got out my medium format Bronica RF645 w/ strobe, set the shutter speed to 1/15th or 1/30th, picked a reasonable f-stop, zone focused and waited for someone on two wheels to come zooming by. All well and good, but it came together in this shot with the black SUV contrasting with the rider's face, the white truck contrasting with his black hair and all this great motion blur contrasting with the frozen areas where the strobe hit the most directly. Oh yeah, and the cool dude w/ baseball cap in the black SUV. This bicyclist was going very fast among intensely dense midtown NYC traffic, and I think this shot captures that feeling nicely. Shot on Tri-X 120 film in the 645 format, w/ 65mm f4 Zenzanon lens. GO TO www.bwphotopro.com for more on the whole world of B&W photography.

B&W Photography: Everyone can do B&W now!

At Left; Iggy Pop, Academy of Music, NYC, early 1980s (go to: www.bwphotopro.com, for more great B&W photos)

Here's the deal: Everyone used to shoot B&W back when I was a kid. Color was expensive and complex. Then color took over, and B&W was history for the average person. 

Now, in the digital age, anyone can do B&W! 

And if you love photography and have never explored B&W, well, you're missing out on something that is seriously cool.

See my Web site: www.bwphotopro.com

You might be surprised by how great your digital images look in B&W. Try converting some photos in your image editor. A simple B&W conversion is just the start, of course. Once you decide to work with a digital image in B&W, you have total control over how the image will ultimately look. To learn more about B&W, and to see some great B&W photos, go to www.bwphotopro.com.