Tag: Black and White

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Friday Inspiration: Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann is well known for his masterful photo-composites that are achieved in the traditional darkroom. While it is true that this kind of composite can now readily be created with the help of Photoshop, for me, few are able to create the kind of surreal masterpieces that Jerry has been able to produce over the years.

I plan to visit the exhibition of Jerry’s work ‘The Mind’s Eye: 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann’ at the Peabody Essex Museum in the coming weeks. Check it out on-line here and read the Boston Globe review here.

Listen to Jerry talk about his photographic process in the video below:

For the full length video of Jerry discussing his work visit http://www.maurofiorese.it/ and also see his interview with Randi Lynn beach of PixChannel

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Friday Inspiration: Douglas Ethridge

I recently came across the photography of Douglas Ethridge. The first image of his that caught my attention was one from the same series as the example I posted above, featured in an interview with him in F-Stop Magazine. There’s more to Douglas than just these images of water, his black and white work is equally stunning. Check out all of his portfolio’s here and my favorite black and white set, Waypoints, here.

Finally check out the video of Douglas discussing his work below.

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Friday Inspiration: Sally Mann

Sally Mann has used a large format camera to photograph the deep south since the 1970’s producing bodies of work that cover portraiture, architecture, landscape and still life. Perhaps her most well known work was ‘Immediate Family’ which focused on her three children who were all under 12 at the time. It’s release was met with controversy, including accusations of child pornography – many of the photos were of her children playing and swimming naked at the families summer cottage.

Sally Mann has received many awards including being named ‘America’s Best Photographer’ by Time Magazine in 2001, she’s a Guggenheim fellow and three times a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship awardee.

Check out the 2006 documentary of Sally Mann, her work and her process ‘What Remains’ below.

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Black & White – Winter Trees

I’m still futzing with making black and white photographs. The winter trees above taken during a rare (at least for this winter) snow flurry is my latest effort at black and white. A little easier to visualize this time since the subject is ostensibly black and white. Comments as always appreciated.

I’m not exactly comfortable with the try it and see approach, although that will surely work, and so I have been looking around for tools and resources that could help educate and train my eye. The book ‘Seeing in Black and White‘ by Alan Gilchrist seems like it would give a solid theoretical understanding and was recommended by Vincent Versace in his recent interview with Ibarionex Perello on The Candid Frame. I’m also looking forward to seeing Vincent Versace’s book on black and white conversion techniques, ‘From Oz to Kansas: Almost Every Black and White Technique Known to Man‘, which should appear in the next couple of months.

The tool that I’ve found that looks intriguing is the Tiffen #1 B&W Viewing filter, essentially a Kodak Wratten 90 monochromatic viewing Filter but in a more user friendly holder. Apparently it is able to remove the color and gives a monochromatic view more like that which would be captured by black and white film. Sounds intriguing and I can’t wait to give it a go. Read more about the filter in an excellent article by George DeWolfe here.

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Purple, The Most European of Colors

Increasing I find that while I’m happy to get up for the sunrise, I’m often less than pleased with the results. The vibrant colors that come with the early morning sunrise are increasing dissatisfying. While I can’t quite put my finger on why, purple bugs me the most. While I deal with my issues with purple, the most ‘European’ of colors, I’m trying out many of my images in black and white to see whether they can stand up on there own. I’m not totally sold on this solution but I’d be interested in your opinion of the black and white image above with the color ‘before’ image below.

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In Service of the Print

Winter Trees

‘Not every printer is a great photographer, every great photographer is a great printer’

Ansel Adams

I came across the quote attributed to Ansel Adams a couple of weeks ago and couldn’t help but wonder whether this is really true today. There have been seismic changes in photography and technology in the last 10 or so years – the shift to digital, decent cameras in most mobile phones, great tablet devices and on and on – that makes me wonder what was true when Ansel Adams made his comment is still true today.

How many people feel the need to print? Sure not people who are stock photographers. They deliver their content to the stock agencies digitally and it is further distributed digitally. Wedding photographers? Again another example of a group that are focused on high quality with high productivity, that would most likely today have some if not all content delivered digitally with the remaining photographs and associated wedding books printed by specialty print services. Editorial photographers, similar story – digital delivery to their editors.

Does this mean that these photographers are not ‘great’? Of course not. The successful photographers in these fields have exacting standards that when coupled with creativity and a capacity for hard work has been the foundation for their success.

So is Ansel’s comment still relevant today? I think so but we should modify it slightly – ‘Every great fine art photographer is a great printer’.

It’s never been easier to print your own photographs. Prices of really good ink jet prints have dropped precipitously and are well within the range of most serious amateurs. There are a huge range of ‘substrates’, papers and other specialty surfaces, available for printing. The standard printer drivers and paper profiles give good results without needing tweaking. Finally there are a tremendous range of resources available to help you along the way – George DeWolfe’s Book ‘George DeWolfe’s Digital Photography Fine Print Workshop‘ is one that I would particularly recommend. It’s quite possible then for us all to make good prints and with a commitment to the craft even some great ones.

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The Circular Journey from Vision to Print

It struck me over the weekend that the path to realizing our vision, whether that’s on the computer monitor or on paper for the old school folks, is circular. I’ve been mulling over technical skills and aesthetic choices over the last couple of weeks resulting in the postings last week regarding conversion to black and white and also getting a better understanding of our sense of aesthetics. The final image to me then is a result of combining these with creativity. Simply put:

Realized Vision = Aesthetic Choices + Creativity + Technical Skills

I often feel that many of the initial photographs in a series are the result of happy accidents, either in the field when I just try something for the sake of it or when I’m back in front of the computer when again I play the game of ‘what happens if I do ….’. Taking that experience and then repeating it in different circumstances and situations then allows me to build that series. Whether it’s playing around with toy camera effects, shooting in black and white, or shooting long exposures all have been informed by what’s gone before. Having a better sense of the possibilities, particularly for post-processing of my images, means that I am ever more aware of possibilities for my photography.

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Friday Inspiration: The Shipping Forecast


Growing up in the UK I often listened to the shipping forecast and could only imagine where places such as Dogger, Fisher, German Bight were. Magnum photographer Mark Power was also captured by the possibilities of these places and his investigation resulted in the project ‘Shipping Forecast’. View images from the project on the Magnum website here. An introduction to the project written by David Chandler can be found here. I recently came across a video for the project and thought I’d share that here.

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The Importance of Story

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What do you think of when you see or hear the phrase ‘visual story-telling’? My mind immediately goes to the classic Life magazine photo-essays such as Eugene Smith’s ‘The Country Doctor‘, or the kind of article you might see in the National Geographic the Smithsonian magazine or my new favorite magazine Orion.

My reaction has also been that I don’t see the world this way, that I’m not trying to tell a story but look for things that resonate with me. That there’s no story here. In part that’s true but stories are all around us, whether we realize it or not. Any time there is a gap in our understanding we tell ourselves a story to explain it. Any time someone does something we like we tell ourselves a story. Any time someone does something that we don’t like we tell ourselves a story. The photographs that we choose to take do tell a story, whether that’s our intention or not. They tell people how we see the world.

The more we understand our own story the better placed we are to tell it to the world and the stronger this understanding the more likely that your work will be unique. My question for you then is ‘What’s your story?’

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3 Things I like About iPhoneography and a Couple I Don't

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1. My Camera is always with me.

There have been so many times when I wished I had a camera with me and regardless of how small the ‘pocket’ camera is I never have a pocket big enough. My iPhone goes everywhere with me.

2. I’m ‘playing’ more than I do with a DSLR.

Along with having the camera with me all the time I’m trying things that I would never have tried with a DLSR such as shooting from unusual angles and trying out different types of processing.

3. Lomo

I’d never heard of the Lomo LC-A camera before I started using the Lomo preset in PhotoToaster. Now I’m half seriously thinking about getting one. Until then I’ll keep trying out the Lomo preset on all of my color images.

… and a few things that I don’t

1. Small file size and consequently small prints.

Some of the iPhone photos I’ve taken in the last year I love but I also know that I will struggle to make big prints from them.

2. Apps that dump data and make small files even smaller.

I love the Hipstamatic app but what’s up with the tiny files?

3. iPhoneography?

Really? That’s the best we can do? How about we just say photography?

Add your voice to the conversation – leave me a comment.