An interesting observation Les and I for one have to take some responsibility for slamming home the use of "full tonal range from pure Black right though to pure white" . As stated it's a personal taste. Here for example I have a 1st shot that falls in to high contrast
2nd shot still reasonably high contrast, but purposely not tipped too much towards getting the dark blacks, as I found I lost the range of tones in processing if I did :-
The a last shot, where I find with portraits / people, I really do calm down the contrast (well, for me anyway
) :-
From above it's clear to see I try to add punch to landscape scenes through contrast , quite often, where as in people photography I tone it down.
Although not easy to provide a generic statement for Mono, for me personally , I'm happy if I can get a shot showing a full set of tones, transitioning smoothly from the deepest black through to the purest white
Happy to hear your views on above Les, as it's always good to have constructive feedback
PS> Sorry Ken for taking off track ...may need to split this out in to new thread