HE SAID: The one and only photography class I took (35 years ago!) taught me the basics of shooting, developing and printing in black and white. I remember the process as being mysterious and frustrating for the most part, but when everything fell into place the results were magical.
Recently, in another photographic universe, I've been trying to revive the memories of that time and see if those lessons might still have the ability to create magic. I now shoot with a Nikon D-70 DSLR. I keep track of my photos as well as process them with a terrific program from Adobe called Lightroom.
My recent experiments have taken me in a number of directions, some close to home and some further afield. Our garden is an obvious starting point.
I wasn't too excited about this shot of the bog end of our pond. But then I realized that it was the fish that were the real subject. Cropping to them created a photo with some mystery. One's sense of space is disrupted. Questions form in your mind as you try to figure out the relationship of parts.
Even a straightforward shot of the driveway border takes on a new aspect when reproduced in black and white. Without the "distraction" of color, the forms become dominant. Certain plants, like the standard lilac, appear to glow.
Southern Wisconsin is blessed with some gorgeous landscape, especially the Driftless Area: the area southwest of Madison that was not scoured by the glaciers of the last ice age. As often as I can, I drive the back roads of that area with my camera on the seat next to me.
There are objects, especially ephemeral ones, both bizarre and beautiful, that seem to demand documentation. Reducing them to black and white seems to me to give them more substance, more gravitas.
Without the luscious pinks and greens to distract us we can appreciate the forms and relationships of parts.
And there are situations where removing the color simply makes an object less disgusting, allowing us to get past our initial reaction and appreciate a natural process in a new light.
Finally, pattern, especially those produced by the random processes of nature, have always drawn my eye and camera. Processing these photos in black and white strips away the distracting color and helps to emphasize the patterns.
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