Hi Brian:
It's an interesting change to see this kind of image from you! I think the monochrome is a great choice to show the different textures and sheens of the materials. I think I would have had the shaft of the stick come in from, say, the bottom left corner, and take you up 2/3 of the way across with the handle pointing at the bottom right corner. What you think?
Looks like it has potential
very interesting. I see a lot of potential. This image is about lines, textures, and tonal contrasts, which are key elements of B&W images. Nice to see you trying a totally new area. We should all try to do that from time to time.
My questions, unlike Trev's, are about PP, not composition. Key questions in B&W include these:
--how much tonal contrast do you want? This is a high-contrast image. My tastes also run to high contrast.
--where do you want the tonal variations to be? You can control this not only with the standard tonality controls, such as a curve, but also by manipulating the brightness of specific color channels. I don't know how to do that in your software, but I am guessing it has these tools.
It's all a matter of taste, but for my taste, too much of this version is near total black; if you loosened up the darks a little, by one means or another, I think you could bring out more texture.
I hope you keep at it. This is a great start.
Now you have new subjects.... i really like this; i think you can now turn your attention also to such still lives too