The World Ain't Black and White

But it can still be a cool way to look at it.

Mt. Rainier from Tehaleh, WA

I grew up on black and white photography. Color film was expensive, especially paying to get each roll of film developed. But I could buy my own developer for black and white, and reuse it many times before it was exhausted. That made B&W the only realistic choice for me when I got my first camera way back when (1960s).

I can’t say I had any kind of black and white aesthetic back in the day. I just like capturing photos with an interesting composition; the arts of contrast and exposure choices came later. This shot embodies the classic relationships of light and dark: enough really dark darks to establish some body in the image—some kind of solid presence. And not too much area with medium tones; the idea was to get the bright and dark portions of the image to energize each other. You need to establish ground and sky, bright and dark, texture and plain.

The original exposure did not have this much contrast in it. It was a partially hazy day, so the blacks were gray, and the snow was light gray. So I process the image to emphasize the contrast without making it garish, and I hope I succeeded.

Shot with an antique lens (Canon EF 135mm f/2) adapted to my thoroughly modern Fuji GFX 100S II camera. So the lens adds a bit to the older aesthetic here. The Canon lens would normally be used mostly for portraits (it has a fast aperture, so it can put key areas of the face in focus while softening the rest), but it is also a very versatile lens, works great for all kinds of work.

Here is the scene in color: same shot, but processed for color not for B&W.

If I were to simply convert the above to B&W, it lacks the contrast and force of the top image in this post because the contrast is more natural. Back in the day, most films could not capture the full range of brightness in a shot, and one had to make compromises. But sometimes a compromise, like driving a chunk of the image toward black, also opens the door to new aesthetic choices.

I also cropped out the plant stakes along the lower edge, which I left in here to show how civilization adds obstacles, sometimes. ;)