A view to a kill...

Some from this morning..

I really like that last shot.

Even the south of the UK were I live is much further north(further north than Chicago for example) than you'd expect given the weather, that pics helped by the downward slope of the hillside and a ultra wide lens exaggerating perspective aswell. The hardest thing to do was making sure my shadow was hidden by the trees in the middle.

One advanatge of winter in the UK is I find that you don't always need to shoot in the "golden hour" to get that kind of effect with the clear skys and low level of the sun, that last pic was taken around mid day.

As I said I'm not using anything that advanced for those, just shooting RAW and processing with Canons free Digital Photo Professional that has present colour filters(which change the brightness of those colours in B&W) and contrast adjust for highlights and shadows. Red filter to bring out the morning sunlight more... Green filter to lighten the leaves....

The Severn Vale this morning...

Two churches, one near to me one far...

My new puppy playing with his brother this morning...

Yeah I agree there is and its often very effective, what I generally find though is that if its not colour but contrast that needs to be heavly manipulated(either up or down) then B&W allows you the freedom to do so without things looking unnatural.