Exploring the Art of Black and White Photography
My artistic roots are solidly in black and white photography. It was my introduction to the medium when I was a boy hanging out in my Dad’s darkroom, and is still my first and greatest love. Black and white photographs have a classic look that captures the essence of a subject when color photographs often cannot. The absence of color allows me to focus on composition, texture, and the interplay of light and shadow, a simpler palette that requires more nuanced interpretation on my part in order to convey my intent in making a photograph. It can lead to a more compelling, powerful photograph.
Today’s black and white photographers trace their roots back to a pioneering group of photographers in California that included Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham and, of course, Ansel Adams. I’ve learned so much by studying the work of these and many other classic photographers, and I believe that their influence is obvious in my work.
Patriarch Western Larch, Glacier National Park
This are of Glacier and the adjacent National Forest had experienced an enormous fire five or six years prior to my arrival. As with most forest fires not every tree or even every area are impacted as much as others and this giant Western Larch, while the bark was scorched on one side, survived. Now it towers over the regrowth of a Lodgepole Pine forest, the young pines appearing to me like so many toddlers mobbing their preschool teacher.
