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Too often we are not aware that it is the shades of grey that add depth & meaning to the starkness of those extremes.” – Ansel Adams “Our lives at times seem a study in contrast… love & hate, birth & death, right & wrong… everything seen in absolutes of black & white.

If you have an interest in black and white photography, experiment with seeing in shades of grey and have fun creating powerful images. While these basics are important to the impact of a color photography as well, they are the essence of black and white.

I find that shooting black and white photography is all about focusing on the basics-tones of grey, quality of light, contrast, composition and texture. National Air and Space Museum photo by Jim Preston. This tire photo is one of the images from that experience. Garber Facility in Suitland, Maryland, last year that resulted in a photo essay. On another occasion I found myself in a black and white mood while taking a tour of our Paul E. The engine and propeller of the Boeing 247-D aircraft is an example of something that struck me this way. But on occasion I come across a subject that jumps out and begs to be processed as a black and white.

Our team shoots color for all our photography work here at the National Air and Space Museum. Just as there were many ways to expose and process film that yielded different results, there are numerous ways to get black and white images from digital.

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What one can do with post-processing software to create dramatic black and whites is the subject of numerous blogs on the web. I can only imagine how he would have loved today’s technology and equipment. The great photographer Ansel Adams used a zone system to create his magical black and white images, expanding the latitude of black and white film beyond a basic grey scale. But with today’s technology and post processing controls in programs like Photoshop and Lightroom, shooting in monochrome would be akin to shooting and processing black and white film and not exposing for shadow and processing for highlights. Monochrome mode gives you a basic greyscale photo of the subject. While that is the easiest method of taking black and white photography today, it is not the most effective. Modern digital cameras allow you to shoot in monochrome and instantly see them in black and white. There was just something magical about the whole process and end result.įlight ops on the deck of the USS America in the Indian Ocean. Black and white seemed to evoke a different emotion than the pictures I was taking in color. I couldn’t wait to go out and shoot pictures- on the hunt for shapes and textures, looking at light and composition, shooting and rushing to the darkroom to process and print my creations.

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And it was that moment that inspired me to become a professional photographer. It was amazing to see the picture come to life in a tray of developer. I had bought a basic home kit to process the film and expose a 4x5 inch sheet of photo paper. But one day I experimented with black and white film. Initially I shot with slide film to capture the color. Armed with a Weston light meter and an Argus C-3 camera, I roamed the countryside of my native Chester County, Pennsylvania, in search of stone barns and wooden fences for my high school art class projects. I was weaned as a photographer on Tri-x film and D-76 developer. It is exciting to witness a resurgence in photographers producing black and white images. “Color photography is like a novel that spells everything out in detail, whereas black-and-white photography is like poetry-its strength isn’t in what’s said it’s in what’s left out.” – Heinrich van den Berg

Dramatic black white portrait