Here are the black and white photos I took on our recent trip to California to visit our daughter. Taking photos in black and white helps me focus on composition, texture, light and shadow. Being so color oriented, it helps me lean into value differences and varying proportions of darks and lights. Because black and white photography emphasizes textural contrasts too, it can carry with it more of a “feeling” in some way, and helps the viewer slow down to observe more mindfully.