I went through my old digital color photographs from October 2006 of the Mount Kailash kora in Tibet shot with Olympus E-500. Nice, sharp and crisp photos. But somehow all the fantastic colors and perfect grainlessness couldn’t convey what I felt emotionally, spiritually and physically on the Buddhist holy circuit. I re-processed the whole batch in black and white and the images just came to life. The cold ruggedness and stark simplicity of the high altitude surroundings around Mount Kailash now easily came through…

But simple B&W conversion just wouldn’t do it. I was looking for that elusive contrasty and grainy look of the long discontinued Kodak high speed print films. Thanks to a free trial of the Nik Silver Efex Pro B&W conversion software and its multitude of presets and ability to adjust almost anything I was able to get that specific look I was after: Heavily vignetted Holga camera loaded with a grainy Kodak 400CN Pro print film emulsion… I really like the results. (For a full-screen view hit F11 and click on the 1st photo.)