There's something strange and powerful about black-and-white imagery. Stefan Kanfer

     In my first high-school photography class, I was taught to photograph portraits with black and white film. Then we retreated to our chemical fragranced dark room, and waited patiently as our photos came to life in our lab.

     Fast forward a few years, to this well developed age of digital media, and voila, black and white happens at the push of a button.  

I edited these images with various photoshop actions.  This one has a black and white haze, from The Florabella Collection.  http://florabellacollection.blogspot.com/2009/11/florabella-actions.html

This one is from Mandy Chiappini Photography, and is a Fairytale black and white action. http://mandychiappiniphotography.blogspot.com/

I felt this photograph had a sweet vintage feeling, so I added a free TTV texture from Skeletal Mess, on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/skeletalmess/sets/72157611177099692/

There are so many things you can do, using actions, including unifying clothing choices that don't necessarily match in color.  This one has a softer, more sepia tone, which brings this three generation grand-mother, mother, and grand-daughter trio even closer.  One thing is for sure, digital phototgraphy and editing give us so many choices, and feels less like you're a mad scientist in a lab, and more like you're an artist at a pixel easel. Happy shooting and editing everyone!