Processing: Black and White, Vintage, or None of the above?

by Christopher Foltz

As much as I do HDR and a have a more over the top type of post processing, I am a huge fan of Black and White, Vintage, and more soft styles of photography. I recently took an image that did not come out exactly how I had planned mostly because of the light and not having the time to wait until full blue hour hit. I will go back and redo it, but still a nice quality shot came out of it. What I want to do with this is show three different versions of this shot that I enjoy each for their different reasons.

1. The first is the basic HDR processed shot (This one is on my Flickr):

2. This is my vintage version of this shot (added a light black and white layer and an adjusted curve layer for the effect):

3. A black and white version:

What are your thoughts? I really like version two the more I think of it the best. Something about vintage shots that I love.

Hope everyone has a good week!!