Submitted by Dwight Pounds
Supplementing Keith Bridgman’s excellent article on black
& white photography, I would like to offer a few additional ideas on the
subject from the perspective of one who has been working in the medium at one
level or another for 70 years. For
starters, there is the subject of black & white film and no doubt many of
us are acquainted with many common names—Kodak Verichrome, Plus-X, even XX,
Tri-X, Ilford, Fuji, and the list goes on.
Likewise, the sizes—120, 220, 620 (!), 35, medium format and large format. I’ll forgo mentioning camera models for sake
of brevity and staying on the chosen subject of decisions to make in the
process of producing convincing black & white photos in an age and plethora
of color images.
Concerning b/w photography in a digital age, I would like to present a digital color photograph and discuss some rather important, immediate decisions that must be made, even before the refinement processes begin. This image of three posts from an old fence on very sandy soil and a pump jack from the West Texas oilfields will be my starting point. Keith mentioned several conversion programs,
Ansel Adams used variations in sky shadings to great effect,
relying primarily upon the blue-red relationship, a red filter darkening a blue
sky considerably. This of course, like
any other aspect of human life and existence, can be taken to ridiculously and
unacceptable levels, but even here there may be some lessons learned in what
happened to the lower portion of the image that may be more
acceptable than in the first three images.
Once the basic image is selected and the b/w conversion
method selected, immediate decisions have to be made and the two I wish to
briefly discuss concern (12) one’s artistic goal(s), (2) content, and (3) selection
of a proper tint. Again regarding the
original color print, these considerations:
Precisely what is it that you as the artist are trying to
say and how are you going to manipulate the original colors to get what you
want…and to whom are you going to say it?
What is it in the photograph that
you want to emphasize—the broad expanse of the area, the posts…or might it be
the needle-like strands of prairie grass that are almost hidden in the first
series of photos? And what about that
annoying can and the obtrusive scrap of paper?
Is your audience a photo club such as we have with Sunny 16? If so, you may wish to clone out the paper
and the can, but if you are preparing a program for an environmental group or
simply citizens wanting to keep neighborhoods and open places clean, the
“annoying” paper and the can may suddenly become key to your presentation.
2 comments:
Thanks Dwight.
Thanks for this information!
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