I could talk about architecture/history shot, but I'd have to admit to OPA. But old hand carving gives me wood. Contrast was nice, but the Fuji saturation was a bit much. 'Desaturated several images.
BSD, the beauty of just the wood in this place just makes me stupid. I have one crop of an embellishment on a rail (one of many) that's worthy of a museum in itself. 4 stories of this kind of beauty w/ a stone exterior w/ stained glass. There was a light inside just under the pipe galleries. Other than that, each of these shots were lit by lights through stained glass on a rainy day. 'Got some experience w/ low light & 16m exposures.
HiHo, you are bringing some amazing and beautiful craftsmanship to this gallery - And very nicely rendering it on the very limiting format of 2-dimensional film and by necessity a crop of the space. It is nice to see some of the colors of the stained glass window light reflected by the wood. I think you did a super job on this photograph. About the choice of color or b/w for your images - you are right that this should be a color photograph in my opinion. My rule of thumb has been that so many things are actually monochromatic, and in other scenes the colors are usually not that important. But a key feature of this object is the gorgeous color and finish of the wood. So my rule of thumb needs challenging and checking from time to time. The photo would have probably worked to some degree in b/w, just in the stunning design of the carvings, but it is far richer in color that leaving that aspect to the viewer of a b/w print. Plus, the aforementioned stained glass window light reflection would have been lost in a confusing muddled tone conflict. I remember one of the first photographs of yours i saw was the trestle in color. Then you posted it in b/w and i was taken by surprise that i thought it lost so much of its qualities when done monochrome.
Michael, thank you for your thoughts - esp. about color v Mono. I very much get tied up in my mental shorts on the topic. Here & other shots, I changed film backs & repeated the shot in the other film. Sometimes I have to look at the result side by side, because each approach gives & takes. In this shot, that middle band of oak leaf carving appears to be carved from the same or similar wood to the wall panel. In the shot of the balcony (img773) this is very much NOT the case - its in a beautiful black wood or darker stain which gives a really nice accent/contrast. img773 loses this detail, but the color version loses some sense of space/mood fading into the dark background. Until my eye learns to see the tradeoff before exposure, I'll have to keep duplicating some shots.