Black and white. Two distinctly different colors at opposite ends of the spectrum. One generally referred to as dark and is often used to portray bad or evil while white is bright and used to portray the good. If something is black it can't be white and vice versa. However, when these two are married, they create something very intriguing and stimulating.
Of course, I'm referring to a black and white image. If captured correctly, a black and white image will blow a color image out of the water any day. Obviously, that is my humble opinion and there are those that will probably disagree with me. However, when I view work by individuals like Ansel Adams, it's obvious that he brings the style to life and says so much more with a monochromatic image than most people do with a full set of colors. Essentially, black and white photography is an artform and whether you're a traditional film photographer that works in the darkroom or a digital shooter that works in photoshop, it takes creativity and skillsets to really create a stunning black and white image. I personally love black and white photography and have only dabbled in digital black and white. As I previously mentioned, I just purchased a Canon AE-1 35mm film camera that I am going to use for some traditional darkroom, black and white photography.
Digital black and white is a subject that we've discussed many times in photo club meetings. I can honestly tell you that no one agrees on a best practice of achieving a satisfying result. I recently came across a great article on photo.net and I thought I would share it with everyone. Harold Davis provides some interesting insight and offers a few tips and techniques for those digital shooters that would like to get a taste of the traditional darkroom black and white techniques and use them on their digital photos. Check it out here.
