Do Black And White Landscapes Work For You Or Are You Strictly A Color Photographer?

Nubble Lighthouse, Cape, Neddick, Maine (click to enlarge)
Fujifilm X-T2, 16-55mm f/2.8 lens @ 20mm; 0.8 sec. @ f/3.6; ISO 200; 10-stop ND filter; converted in Lightroom

Contrary to what we predominantly see on the web and in exhibits today, I've always preferred black and white photography.  Black and white photography represents my roots in photography.

When I first became interested in photography, it was all about black and white photographs.  Color was secondary in serious work.  I studied Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, the Farm Security Administration photographers who photographed the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, W. Eugene Smith, Henri Cartier-Bresson and others.  I was fascinated, not by color, but by the power and strength of the content of the images, whether landscape, portraits, street photography or documentary photography.  Then, serious documentary, landscape and most other types of photography were black and white.

Shiprock, New Mexico (click to enlarge)
Fujifilm X-T2, 50-140mm f/2.8 lens @ 87mm; 1/340th sec. @ f/11; ISO 200

I started my photographic self-education process by trying to understand how to get the proper tones in a black and white image by studying the Zone System.  I bought Ansel Adam's books, "The Negative and The Print.  I bought many, many photographic monographs, photo magazines and everything I could get my hands on, as well as look at thousands of photographs to truly understand what good photographs looked like and what a good black and white photographic looked like.  

I then moved into learning darkroom work.  That was an eye opener.  I became really serious about it when I took a good portion of the garage attached to my home and converted it to an 8 ft. X 12 ft. darkroom, fully equipped with a 6 ft. sink and dual faucets, a 4" X 5" Beseler enlarger, trays up to 16" x 20", a Zone VI archival print washer, etc.  When I do things, I do them right.

Lamar Valley and Lamar River in Yellowstone National Park (click to enlarge)
Nikon D800E; 70-200mm f/2.8 VR lens + TC14II 1.4x tele-converter @ 320mm; 1/250th sec. @ f/11; ISO 100

I spent years and years learning photography and how to make good black and white photographic prints.  No internet back then.  No blogs, YouTube, almost no photo workshops, etc.  One mainly got his or her photo education being mentored, attending a specialized photographic school (like Brooks) or taking classes in college.  

There was one "mail order" course of photographic education out of New York that, if I remember well, was thought of pretty highly in teaching one photography of all types.  You bought the multi-lesson course, they sent you the lessons, you did what the lesson told you to do and made the appropriate photographs, then you sent the photographs in to be critiqued by one of their instructors and were given a grade.  They then sent you the feedback and you took it to heart to improve.  Then you moved to the next lesson.  It was called the "New York Institute of Photography," I believe, and it still exists and is in business!  I was quite surprised but don't know it is actually the same business or just the same name.  I don't know the current quality of the instruction either.

Kepler Cascade on the Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park (click to enlarge)
Nikon D800E; 24-70mm f/2.8 lens @ 70mm; f/11; ISO 100

Over the years, as I progressed in my journey and became the "City Photographer" for the city where I was employed, along with my police forensic photography, I was forced to start migrating to color.  But my heart always remained with black and white.  Still does.  I guess my feelings are still rooted in my photographic beginnings with film.  

Feeling the tug of black and white, the other day I thought I would go in and convert some of my landscapes to monochrome.  Most young photographers today have no experience nor care anything much about black and white photography.  What is your feeling about these?  Do they do anything for you or do you prefer color?

Looking south from Colorado Route 24 (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens @ 21mm; 1/800th sec. @ f/8; ISO 200

In general, my thoughts are I like color when the color in and of itself is important to the image.  If the color is extraneous to what the image represents, in other words, the perceived meaning of the image, then the color just gets in the way.  In those cases, black and white images can better transmit the power and meaning of a particular image without the viewer being distracted by color itself.

Black and white images can better convey the photographer's intent for meaning, emotion, shape, line, strength, depth, pattern, tone and all of those attributes that have nothing to do with color.

Along Colorado's Million Dollar Highway (Route 550) (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark II; 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens @ 61mm; 1/640th sec. @ f/8; ISO 200

Firehole Falls, Firehole River, Yellowstone National Park (click to enlarge)
Nikon D800E; 24-70mm f/2.8 lens @ 45mm; 2.5 sec. @ f/11; ISO 50

The top several images in this post were made digitally and in color.  They were originally posted in this blog in color.  However, there is a significant difference and emotion involved when looking at these images in black and white.  

Abandoned Silver Mine along Colorado's Million Dollar Highway (Route 550) (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark II; 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens @ 31mm; 1/60th sec. @ f/8; ISO 200

One of the two "famous" Mormon barns in Jackson Hole, Wyoming (click to enlarge)
Nikon D800E; 24-70mm f/2.8 lens @ 62mm; 1/320th sec. @ f/9; ISO 250

Dead trees on a foggy morning in Yellowstone National Park (click to enlarge)
Nikon D800E; 24-70mm f/2.8 lens @ 44mm; 1/50th sec. @ f/8; ISO 100

Sunrise over Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park (click to enlarge)
Nikon D800E; 24-70mm f/2.8 lens @ 38mm; 1/1600th sec. @ f/8; ISO 100

Dallas Divide, Colorado (click to enlarge)
Olympus E-M1 Mark II; 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens @ 54mm; 1/250th sec. @ f/8; ISO 200

The Killing Field (from poisonous hot springs water), Yellowstone National Park (click to enlarge)
Nikon D800E; 24-70mm f/2.8 lens @ 27mm; 1/25th sec. @ f/11 ISO 100

Life regenerating after a wildfire, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado (click to enlarge)
Fujifilm X-T2; 16-55mm f/2.8 lens @ 16mm ;1/70th sec. @ f/11; ISO 200

Late afternoon on the Gros Ventre River, Jackson Hole, Wyoming (HDR) (click to enlarge)
Nikon D800E; 24-70mm f/2.8 lens @ 24mm; f/11 ISO 100

Life regenerating after a wildfire, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado (click to enlarge)
Fujifilm X-T2; 16-55mm f/2.8 lens @ 34mm ;1/125th sec. @ f/11; ISO 200

Photographing in black and white is different that photographing in color.  You have to "see" differently.  You have to mentally translate color to brightness tones and then mentally assess how those juxtaposed tones will look when adjacent to each other in the final image.  With digital, you don't have to practice these mental gyrations as much because of the flexibility in converting a color RAW file into black and white and having those sliders that take the place of glass filters in the film days.  When you shot black and white film, you either understood how you had to see or you didn't.  If you didn't, you might was well shoot color.

The images below were made with me going out specifically to photograph as black and white images and as square images.  I put on my black and white vision, which caused me to "see" a bit differently.  I think these work fine in black and white.  All but the mushroom image were made with the Olympus E-M1 Mark II and the 12-100mm f/4 PRO lens.  The mushroom image was made with the Olympus 300mm f/4 PRO lens + MC-14 1.4x tele-converter.  By the way, the mushroom image was made handheld at 1/40th sec. @ f/11, ISO 4000.  Handholding the equivalent of an 840mm field of view lens at 1/40th sec. is quite remarkable, no matter who you are!  But I can't take much credit as Olympus' IBIS combined with the image stabilization in this lens is incredible.

Some of these image work much better in black and white than others.  Some I like and some work better in their original color.  I purposely included images that I didn't think worked well in black and white to see if you came to the same conclusion. 

I suspect that my younger and middle-aged readers much prefer color over monochrome.  I have a feeling a greater percentage of readers my age, who started out with film and in black and white (you could develop black and white film at home in the 60s and 70s but color was either impossible or extremely difficult without very expensive automated machinery) have a soft spot in their hearts for good black and white photography.  And that is the rub.  I'm certainly not saying the images posted here represent "good" black and white photography as one has to "see" differently when photographing in monochrome than in color.  I was seeing in color for most of these and not paying attention nor mentally translating colors to tones or to the juxtaposition of gray tonalities for these images.

I hope you enjoyed these.  It was a nice trip down memory lane for me!  Now back to our regular programming!

Join me over at Instagram @dennisamook or my website, www.dennismook.com. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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