I haven't shot a whole lot of black and white film stock, but the few rolls of it that I have shot have resulted in some of my favourite photographs to date. There's something specific about black and white film that really pulls me in, I think it is due to the more evident grain and the focus on composition over shadows and colour. With the removal of colour telling you how to feel, instead your eyes roam the image in search of context and story, looking into the objects displayed and how they are displayed, eventually coming to form your own idea of what is being said. I really like this, since it can mean that the audience that view the images can ultimately come to their own ideas, even if there never really was one to begin with. The same applies to colour photography too, of course. But this lack of emotion encourages emotion from within, the personal stories we hold ourselves that may connect us to the image.
Funnily, I didn't really really like these images at first. They didn't really do anything for me, I felt void of that emotion when I looked at them. I pushed them aside in favour of the others that did make me feel, and only really bothered to share those. But a few years later, I look at these and feel they aren't so bad. They each have their own simple charm to them. Sure composition and subject matter could be better, but sometimes it's the lack of structure in an image that makes it feel more authentic and interesting. Perhaps some others feel that way, or perhaps others just think these suck.
I shot these on Ilford Pan 400 film stock, which I think I have only ever shot once before. I often avoided using black and white because of the lack of interesting subjects that were around me whenever I was not in London. Open fields and smaller towns I found myself in just didn't cut it on black and white film stock. Sadly I think the prices of black and white film have been catching up with the crazy prices of colour film as inflation kicks in and people choose cheaper rolls over the more expensive ones. But I'd like to get back into shooting black and white soon, perhaps I'll bite down and order a few rolls and see what comes from them. They were taken on my Canon AE-1 camera too, with its Canon FD 50mm F1.8 lens. I think you can tell that they're taken with more of a portrait lens.
I'm not sure what the span of these photographs were taken in; they're from the same roll of film but I often take my time when shooting film again for the aforementioned reasons regarding the lack of subject.