Food for thought!
Today's black and white films are truly great!(if you can fnd em)
Some time ago Kodak came out with a black &white fillm which is processed in C-41 color developing solutions,and not the special black and white chemicals that are neded in order to process it .
This C-41 Process allows you to have your film developed anywhere where color prints are made .( s mentioned above)
If you can still find some it could be fun to expermiment with.
Otherwise I suggest that you will need to go to a pro lab for processing.
Please note that with a computer and a free program for post processing( Google's picasa ) for example virtually any color digital image can be converted into a black and white. If however you want to work in the film medium and have trouble locating 35mm black & white film you can try these stores and have it mail ordered.Try B&H,Adaroma,orWB Hunt for starters.
Assuming you have a black & white enlarger w/35mm neg carrier, paper easel ,safe light, developing timer,developing film tanks,developing trays, chemicals for both the developing and enlarging. bottles for chemicals, tongs and a complete dark room I suggest the use of a pro lab for your film developing and enlargements after they make a contact proof sheet for you to look at.
The reason for the above statement is that Kodak formally the worlds number one producer of 35 mm film as well as chemicals for processing is filing chapter 11. Other than Illford, and fugi I have not seen anyone else producing B&W 35 MM film.
Chemicals at least as far as I know for the processing of 35mm film and enlarging papers are made only by Illford.
It would be a shame to see you buy all that equipment for a do it yourself enlargement only to find out that you no longer can get the chemicals necessary .
I'm not certain if the environmental laws of your state will consider these chemicals a bio-hazard when it comes times to dispose of them.
So my advise would again turn to a pro lab(if you have one in your area) and let them process your film for you.
Hope this helps! :thumbup:

Film is a whole new technology. I have the feeling that Bill does not have extensive experience with digital. If I am right, I would say learn digital and forget about film. Too hard to learn two technologies at the same time. I did film for over forty years and I think the world of it. However, its time has come and gone as symbolized by Kodak's recent bankruptcy filing.

I believe that digital will give as good results as film. The purists will probably be up in arms over this but that is my opinion. Bill's next question is whether to shoot as monochrome or color. I say color because you can always convert color to monochrome but not the other way without expensive manipulation. There are several ways to convert. Among the most popular are letting the software do it or removing all the saturation. In either case, if you are using jpg's, do it on a copy. If raw, it does not matter. Once converted to monochrome, you can apply any and all the adjustments, masks or whatever to the image to fine tune it.

Good luck.