Why Black and White? Photography literally means drawing with light from the Greek words for light and drawing. It is a process of depicting images by creating more light to contrast with less light, or dark. Originally the art of photography was entirely done with black and white light, taking images from the world that to our eyes are in color and transforming them into images that only depicted the light and the dark, black and white, with all the variations between. Today photography uses colored light as an additional tool, adding a complexity to the images. Color images may appear more "real" since that is the way most of us perceive the world. I am increasingly looking at my images, all of which are originally produced in color, to see what they would be like in black and white. Often this reduction to the purity of the light intensity with the subtraction of color adds an intensity of focus, bringing out the soul of the image in a new way. In this gallery I have chosen some of my images that work well in black and white to allow our eyes to evaluate the quality of light in the image. To get a view of the sometimes dramatic difference in images view the slide show below. |
Slideshow - Color to Black and White