A whiter shade of pale

I saw on the news the other day the very last roll of Kodachrome slide film had been processed and a colorful film institution slipped into the history books.  Our nice bright colors on a sunny day are gone forever.  But is it such a bad thing after all?

I don't spend enough time thinking in black and white.  I am so programmed for colors and hues that sometimes I forget to look at tones and textures.  Photography the way I learned it long ago.  With my Canon 40D selecting monochrome mode is easy as I have programmed a custom function on the settings dial to easily slip into the world of subtle shades of gray and black.

During today's hike at Point Reyes I really tried to see what would look good in good old black and white.  I tried to concentrate on tones, highlights and shadow values and I think I captured some nice shades of gray.  I will be posting color shots of the hike but I thought I would share these monochrome images first.