Photography Workshop Day 11: Stripping Down

I'm a little behind on the classes this week because of a busy weekend followed by just being overwhelmed with all I have to do! But I did skip ahead a few days to do one day. Day 11 was all about stripping out the color from photo's to bring out the texture. I found a few really pretty pine cones on a walk earlier this week, that I picked up with this prompt in mind. I finally got around to taking their pictures today. I then had to learn photo shop so I could figure out how to make my photo's black and white! I still have no idea what I'm doing in photoshop...but I'm actually pretty pleased with how these crops and black and whites came out! I really fell upon the great black and white by accident though, as an effect in the side bar (after trying and failing to download and install some actions! I really need to learn photoshop!

Anyway, here are my 2 photo's! I hope they work! My first time converting something to black and white, and cropping something way down on the second one!