Category: Black & White

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Bring Mystery

Deep, rich, crushed blacks

Some art lays everything out for you. What you see is what you get. Some art, though, seems to bring mystery to the image. You, the viewer, must become involved with it and imagine what you cannot see. I find I am being drawn more to the mystery side.

Note: this article was inspired by an article "The Imaginary Shadows" in Better Photography Magazine #112.

Reveal all

I used to think full tonal range realism was the ideal for most art and photography in particular. I loved hyper realism. Honestly, I still do. Super detail throughout, Textures so crisp you think you can feel them. That is one reason I use a camera with good lenses and lot of pixels.

You know the drill, especially if you are were in a camera club. Expose to the right, but no blown out highlights. Full histogram down to a few spots of rich blacks. The subject must be in the sharpest possible focus. Well sharpened overall, but with no halos. Printed using the best available paper and techniques so another photographer can come right up to the print as close as he can see and it all looks smooth and sharp to his critical eye.

All these things are good ideas, but not a formula for making great art. I spent years honing my craft to be able to capture all those pixels in the best way. And more learning how to process the files to bring out all that detail. The technician in me loves the technical challenge. And the purist in me loves to see all that gorgeous detail and texture.

Contrasts

There is a problem I am starting to see, though. When you clearly show the viewer everything there is to see, it gets boring quickly. There is little holding power in the image. It is like a movie preview that gives away the whole plot. There is no mystery left. Viewers pass on fairly quickly.

It is starting to sink in to me that in art and life, a lot is about contrasts. Contrasts put things in opposition. We are drawn to regions of sharp contrast. It is in our hard wiring.

Contrasts are a way of comparing things by showing opposing qualities. The contrasts can be light vs dark, in focus vs out of focus, warm colors vs cool colors, moving vs still, hard vs soft, textured vs smooth – there are too many to enumerate.

But we instinctively know that contrasts define a comparison that is important to the image. So we are drawn to the contrasted areas. We spend time looking and trying to figure out the meaning or importance of the contrast.

It helps guide our understanding of the image and we become more involved in figuring out the artist’s intent.

Use contrasts

So, perhaps, viewers actually appreciate some need to think about and spend some time with an image. I call this introducing mystery. The viewer wants to get engaged and invest some energy in it. Contrasts are one primary way to do this.

Unlike just a flat field of pixels, contrasts help the viewer understand the artist’s intent. It shows what relationships the artist wants to point out. What comparisons he wants to make. Contrasts help point out what the artist wanted us to notice.

The mystery of black

There is a special type of contrast often used in black & white images: areas of black. An article by Len Metcalf in a recent issue of Better Photography magazine brought this to my attention. It was kind of an “Aha” moment. You know how when you know something subconsciously, but then you see it written down and it is like a flash of insight?

Len is an excellent photographer and teacher in Australia. He was describing a realization that came to him while teaching one of his master classes. They were surrounded by prints from great photographers, from Ansel Adams to contemporary artists. He says

As I looked around the room, I became acutely aware of the intense blackness in each of the prints. As I stared, I realized that these were not little black speckles as we are cautioned about by judges in camera club competitions. … These were humongous areas of beautiful, deep rich velvety, black black, blacker than black blacks.

He goes on to observe that some artists, like Ansel Adams and Bill Brandt for example, tended to make their prints darker and darker as they got older.

Why? What were they seeing?

Hold back

One of his conclusions was that they realized that, in some cases, the less said, the better. That is, areas of blacks added a new quality to the images.

He speculates that areas of highlight show all their information clearly. You see everything there is to see. The whole story is laid out clearly for us, so we do not have to work or use our imagination. But the dark areas, the spaces where we can’t see what is going on, hold interest for us. We wonder what is there. We make up our own story. it engages our imagination.

Maybe this is why artists like Ansel Adams printed larger and larger areas of deep black as they evolved in their art. By holding back some information from the viewer the image actually becomes more interesting.

Crush the blacks

So I seem to be on a campaign to crush the blacks. What this means is intentionally pushing some of the darkest grays down to pure black. Yes, it eliminates information from the image. That is something we were always taught not to do.

But it is an artistic choice. It brings the benefits I mentioned about introducing mystery and drama into an image.

It is not for all images in all situations. But when you decide to use it, go for it. Be heavy handed. Overdo it to see how far you want to take it. When I overdo it and back off some, I find that I do not back off as far as I would have if I didn’t overdo it. In other words, after seeing the result, I often want to retain more of the effect that I would have thought

It is surprising. Sometimes less is more. Experiment with making your blacks darker to see how it feels to you. I like what I am seeing so far. I used to consider dark images as somber and melancholy. Now I would more likely refer to them as mysterious. Try it and see if it feels better to you.

Today’s image

For fun and an experiment, I went back to an old image and re-processed it to crush the blacks even more. The result is more dark and mysterious than the original. I like it much better. Maybe it is approaching the “humongous areas of beautiful, deep rich velvety, black black, blacker than black blacks” that Len was talking about.

One other reason for doing this is to investigate a point Len made that an advantage previous generations of photographers had was that, to re-print an image, they had to go through the whole darkroom process. This gave them a chance to think about the image anew and re-interpret it according to their current sensibility. We tend to just hit print to make a new print. No thought involved.

I found, indeed, that I changed the image when I took a new fresh at it.

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Making a Black & White Picture

Processing the image, not the real scene

I seem to be following a couple of converging streams lately. Several times recently I have discussed whether art, specifically photography, should be “real” – e.g. faithful to the original. I have also been thinking a lot about black & white. Today I am merging these thoughts (don’t cross the streams!). I want to talk about making a black & white picture. That is explicitly chosen rather than saying “taking” a black & white picture.

A unique art

In my last post I mentioned some of the history of black & white imaging. This is important to keep in mind. This is not just general photography. It is a specific art form with a long tradition.

We are not talking about just taking the color out of a picture. How many times have you heard someone say “that did not work in color, let’s try it is black & white”? As if to say that black & white processing is a last ditch effort to save an image. What a very limited view.

When we step into the black & white world we are now following a different path. The way we look at the image, the way we work, the results we try to achieve are all very different from working a color image.

It is art

By its very nature, a black & white image is an abstraction. It is removed from reality. We use black & white to reinterpret scenes we see. This is art.

As art, the results do not have to recreate the reality we originally started with. Did VanGogh actually see what he painted as Starry Night? If he did, he was on some serious drugs. Are Monet’s water lilies a faithful representation of the original scene? No, they are an interpretation. This is a characteristic of art.

Likewise, black & white images are not meant to be a colorless picture of the original scene. It should capture a unique view or feeling about what it was.

Recent videos

This was brought home to me when watching a recent video by Serge Ramelli. The course was “Mastering Black and White Photography in Lightroom”, available on Kelby Training. (I get no compensation from Serge or Kelby One.)

What hit me was not that Lightroom is a pretty good tool for doing black & white – I knew that. I came away with a new view of how Serge approaches modifying a picture to become a good black & white image. Not just the techniques, but the boldness.

Serge has the ability to forget about the scene as shot and just look at the image on screen and ask what should be done to it to make it interesting. What it was originally is not even a consideration at this point.

Realization – I haven’t let go

The realization the hit me is that, despite all my talk about art not necessarily being representational, I have trouble making that transition in my black & white images. I get stuck too much in my memory of the scene as shot.

All that matters is the image I am working with on the screen and the final print. That is the art. What I started with doesn’t matter.

I have to get better at letting go and just working the image.

No sales pitch

I don’t want you going away thinking I am just promoting Serge. No, while he is unmistakably a very good artist, he is too commercialized for my taste. He has a neatly packaged set of products encompassing books and training videos and actions and tie-ins to other photographers and their training, etc. There is a strong a flavor of “follow my instructions and you can make pictures just like me”. Thank you, but I don’t want to copy you, Serge. I just want to improve my ability to realize my own vision.

I have learned good things from Serge’s videos, and I recommend you checking them out on Kelby One or Creative Live. He presents a lot of excellent information, but I do not want to be a Serge Ramelli clone.

My takeaway

Serge opened my eyes some. I realize that the boldness I thought I had is only a shadow of how I ought to be behaving. What I saw Serge doing was just working with the image until it was the artistic piece he wanted. I need to completely let go of my “knowledge” of what it is and where and how it was made. Those things are not important at this stage. All that is important is how can I make this set of pixels an interesting black & white image?

The image here is an attempt to follow this advice. This is where I live and this is a snapshot I took on a daily walk from my studio. This is basically the original image, no compositing or major editing. Creating this result was frustrating and a little painful until I really broke down my inhibitions and got in the spirit of the process. What you see here is very different in feeling and impression to the original. It works well in black & white, but it is not a faithful representation to the original. This picture was made, not just taken. I like the result.

How about you? What do you think? How much liberty should artists take?

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Thinking Black & White

Example black & white image

It seems to me I have been seeing and thinking in black & white more lately. Not seeing the world as black & white. Things are not that simple and clear cut. No, seeing the world as black and white images. That is the interpretation of reality I am leaning more to these days.

Contribution of photography

I believe black and white is one of the great contributions of photography to the art world. Yes, at the time it was a technical limitation rather than an artistic choice. The processes and chemistry of the late 19th century through mid 20th century could only create monochrome images.

But the look stuck. It became associated with photography, with “reality” in image making. It helped establish photography as a distinct art form from painting.

Because that is the medium they had, the practitioners of it became extremely proficient at creating beautiful, artistic images. A good artist learns how to use his tools. Some people say their achievements of the old masters of black & white photography have never been equaled. I’m not so sure. We can do a pretty good job today.

Not obsolete

Most people view black & white images as obsolete today. Why do that when we have a wonderful world of color imaging? Why throw away all that rich color information?

The reality is that black & white is still a unique and vibrant art form. It can create very captivating images. Well done and well printed I believe we can still rival the best of the “old masters” like Ansel Adams.

There are magazines that only showcase black & white. There are galleries that only accept black & white works. Some artists only do black and white. Why? Because many art lovers look to it as a wonderful medium for conveying emotion and feeling. It is still quite popular.

Advantage of black & white

But why? What advantage does black & white have? These days, since we have an equal choice between black & white and color, there must be a reason to chose black & white at times.

Black & white is an abstract medium. Eliminating color brings a new and different view of the world. Without color the image becomes shades of tone and forms. It creates a whole new way of looking at things. It is clear that it is not just a representation of reality, it is an interpretation, a new view. The photographer could have worked in full color. So black & white was a conscious choice to show something different.

Being so different, it is immediately set apart as something to be looked at in a new way. That helps with the reinterpretation of the scene. Plus, many viewers appreciate the pure tonal variations without the distraction of color. It becomes a new type of art.

So creating black & white prints is no longer a technical limitation of the medium, it is an artistic choice. We use it because it can better express our view of the scene.

Why now?

As I said, it is an artistic choice. Some subjects seem to work better in black & white. There is a lot to be said for removing color distractions and focusing attention on tonal variations. Shapes and form and relationships take on a new prominence. It is a different interpretation of a scene.

And the technology now shifts the work from the darkroom – in the dark and where you are breathing all sorts of chemicals – to the computer – in the light, maybe with a glass of wine nearby. Sounds more pleasant and creative to me. The masters, like Ansel Adams needed to make a number of test prints to work out the “map” of the dodging and burning and sharpening and spotting required to create the final print they like. Then they, or more likely their assistant, would spend many hours in the darkroom hand creating each print. Each print required hours of work.

Now technology lets us push the time consuming work up front. I may spend hours on the computer working with an image to get it exactly the way I want. Then in a matter of minutes I can print it. If my systems are set up correctly, the print is a very good match of what I created on the computer. And I can push the button again and produce perfect duplicates every few minutes. The computer and printer technology completely changes the game. No more colored filters on black & white film, no more long sessions in the darkroom in possibly harmful chemicals, no more having each print be a performance piece that may of may not match the artist’s template.

Technology-wise, this is the best time in history to be creating black & white prints. Artistically it is a great time, too. The world is saturated with color prints and black & white seems fresh and unique – a different point of view. It is time for a resurgence of black & white. At least for me.