Lockdown is adding an interesting creative constraint to this project lately, because on top of the conditions I set for myself, there's also now the challenge to make something creative without leaving my own property. So it seems like a good time to create the first proper black and white image of this project and do a study in texture. In this case that meant starting with something which had an obvious texture, like this old lichen covered fence we have in the back yard.
The bulk of the work between capture and publishing it here online was playing around with how to do the black and white conversion though. I'm not sure if it's common knowledge or not, but there are many, many different ways to edit a black and white image that will all end up looking quite different to each other, even though they're all still black and white. It's why I tend to agree with the advice that you should never have your camera take the photo in black and white while taking the photo, because that locks you into however the camera decided to do the conversion and takes away some of the options you would otherwise have if you converted it from color.
The decision I had the hardest time with was trying to come to was whether to give it a more matte look by reducing the detail in the darkest parts of the image or not. Ultimately I settled on adding a slight matte because you don't often see that combined with all the other settings people use when highlighting texture. You can see the difference between them below, with the matte version on the left and the higher contrast version on the right:
Take care during lockdown, friends.