Strange Pulse

Last weekend I bribed Nathaniel into driving up north with me, up near Victorville, to an old stretch of route 66. There’s some old abandoned buildings there. A lot of the houses along the road are in really bad repair, so it was kind of hard to tell which buildings are actually still in use. I only stopped at places I could tell for sure were abandoned. Which basically meant they were boarded up or had graffitti.

I took all of these pictures in color and then saved them out as B&W in Photoshop. Which do you think wins?

1)

I like the shade of brown. I think the B&W makes the building look older/scarier. I can’t decide. I don’t particularly think this picture is that great, to be honest.

2)

I think this is kind of a weird picture. I go back and forth between liking the color (the blue is nice) and liking the B&W. I think I prefer the feel of the B&W here though.

3)

I prefer the B&W here. I like how the tone of the sky in the top half sort of matches the tone of the ground in the bottom half, and I think your eye goes directly to the building in the B&W, whereas in color, the sky is competing. But maybe that’s just me.

4)

I think I like the color shot here, but it might be just because it’s a boring picture, but less so in color.

5)

I think shots of decay like this one are almost always better in B&W. Just imagine what’s been done on that couch…the mind reels.

6)

Color.

7)

Color. If only because the Indian figure is such a great rust color.

We also visited the ruins of an old socialist colony near Llano, and a field of Joshua Trees, but I’ll posts pics from those places later.