Hi Terry,
I love working in black-and-white; it is the true distillation of good photography where the photographer is required to concentrate on those three essential elements… light, composition and emotion.
I think there are two distinct considerations we need to discuss with this photograph. The first is the composition. You went to this location on a wet and miserable day when there were puddles of water everywhere, which is why I am wondering why you did not try and include more of the reflections of the building in this photograph. I would have loved to have seen that architecture mirrored in the foreground. Maybe you might have a frame it does have the foreground contained, and if so I would make the most of it.
The next thing to discuss is the black-and-white conversion. Given that this is your second attempt at black-and-white photography I think you are doing okay. What is worth remembering in black-and-white photography is that you often need to accentuate light, shade and contrast to get the most from an image. In the example below I have darkened the sky, then I have used the Dodge tool (with range set to Midtones) to lighten stonework on the building and then used the Burn tool (with range set to Shadows) to define the lines.
One piece of software that you might find useful if you are going to regularly work in black-and-white is Nik Silver Efex Pro. It is designed specifically for working photographs into black-and-white and aside from giving you good control over the tonal ranges in an image, it also provides you with some realistic toning options including the blue toning I have added to theimage below.
All the best with your black-and-white pursuits,
Cheers, Anthony
After The Storm - Image Doctor's edited version
