Black & White Prints Falling Short?

Creating a Black & White image that excites me has been very hard to date: I feel I have not yet gotten the hang of seeing in ‘tones’. Darwin Wiggett recently interviewed Cole Thompson on his B&W imagery. Cole’s images absolutely floored me. I have subsequently signed up to Cole’s blog and while reading through his recent posts, came across this one that talks about pitfalls in getting to a B&W print compared to what we see on a computer or camera screen. Visit his site for stunning photography and the post for the complete text. The messages I’m taking away are:

1. Your camera screen and computer monitor are backlit while a print is reflected light.

2. Contrasts within the photo are the life blood of B&W

3. Whether it be in-camera or post production, always watch your luminance histogram for a good spread across the whole range

4.  Getting the contrast you see on screen to the printer will require more blacks, whites and contrasts. and

5. Experience and experimentation as always so shoot shoot shoot.

Gaining experience is as simple as shooting more. It sounds pedantic and you probably feel the same way I did when I first heard it: “what the heck are they talking about” was my thought. Well, the more images I take, the more I learn what I like, what the scene looked like when I took that shot and which ones worked and didn’t work. For B&W, I’ve learned (several times), to convert a bunch of photos into B&W and see how they look. After a while you get an idea what tonal values are hidden in the colours, and you’ll start to train your eye to see contrasts. Also, keep your eye out for people like Cole Thompson or Younes Bounhar who you can learn from: either via workshops or through their imagery. From there, the step to B&W prints that meet your expectation is another short hop requiring more practice.

I have a long road to travel and am excited about the journey itself. See you out there.