Monochromatic almost

Ah, I sort of got "tagged" by Grace, who asked us to post our favourite black and white photos. Unfortunately, I'm not a B&W type of guy. Historically, 99.9% of my pics have been shot on colour film. I can't remember ever loading B&W film in my old faithful camera (which is now RIP, sadly). And since the advent of digital, I've also been shooting in colour... though it never occurred to me to seriously shoot in B&W although I've been encouraged to try it out. In the family, my brother and sister are the ones who have dabbled in B&W. I know it's so much easier now, with digital photography, to shoot in B&W just by changing the camera settings, and even to convert colour to B&W during post-processing. I've played around just a little bit with the focal B&W and de-colourizing, as you can see in the picture of the water lily on the side bar and my earlier post.

But for now, here's my humble offering of a "B&W" picture. It was actually shot on colour film, but the lighting and mood of the scene lends it an almost monochromatic appearance. If you look closely you can see tinges of green on the edges of the vegetation. This picture was taken on my second hiking trip up to Gunung Tahan in October 2002. We were scrambling up the steep cliff on the side of Gunung Gedong, which we had to surmount on the way to the Gunung Tahan summit. The route was rather hazardous due to the loose, crumbling rock surface that kept slipping away under our boots as we tenaciously tried to get a grip on the near vertical slope. There were permanent ropes affixed for climbers' convenience, which we used to pull ourselves up. However, I often find it more reassuring to grab the firmly anchored tree roots that are much more sturdy than the swaying rope! Halfway up, while resting precariously on a ledge, I glanced back and saw this ethereal scene of mist wafting through the jungle. I took out the camera and snapped a quick shot while holding on to dear life. Only one shot. There was not much time nor space to compose and recompose. I would count this as one of my serendipitous shots that turned out quite well. :)

Misty forest, Gunung Gedong, Oct 2002

p/s: I don't know how, but the Tahan trail has been ranked one of the Top 10 treks in the world! Check it out here. Woohoo! A World's Top 10 right in our backyard!