MICHAEL FREEMAN BLACK & WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY FIELD GUIDE

MICHAEL FREEMAN BLACK & WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY FIELD GUIDE

MICHAEL FREEMAN BLACK & WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY FIELD GUIDE The essential guide to the art of creating black & white images

First published in the USA 2013 by Focal Press Focal Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group an informa business 70 Blanchard Road, Suite 402, Burlington, MA 01803, USA Copyright 2013 The Ilex Press Ltd. All rights reserved. This book was conceived, designed, and produced by Ilex Press Limited, 210 High Street, Lewes, BN7 2NS, UK Publisher: Alastair Campbell Creative Director: Peter Bridgewater Associate Publisher: Adam Juniper Managing Editor: Natalia Price-Cabrera Specialist Editor: Frank Gallaugher Editor: Tara Gallagher Editorial Assistant: Rachel Silverlight Creative Director: James Hollywell Designer: Jon Allan Color Origination: Ivy Press Reprographics No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher. Notices: Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary. Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility. Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data: A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: 978-0-415833-51-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-203486-76-4 (ebk) Typeset in Aptifer Sans LT Pro

CONTENTS Introduction 6 THE BLACK & WHITE TRADITION 8 Monochrome in Fine Art 10 The Photographic Tradition 16 Wavelength & Sensitivity 20 Black & White as Normality 22 Monochrome in Photography vs Painting 30 The Photographer s Choice 34 Subtracting Color 42 Shape 44 Structure 46 Tonal Nuance 48 Form & Volume 50 Texture 52 Interpretation 54 Film 60 DIGITAL MONOCHROME 66 The Monochrome Sensor 68 Linear Capture 70 The Clipping Problem 72 Noise, Bit Depth, & Shading 74 Infrared 80 Your Processing Workflow 88 Silver Efex Pro 92 Basic Processing 96 Colors into Tones 104 Default Conversions 106 Hue Adjustment 108 Reversals of Brightness 110 Using Hue to Control Contrast 112 Using Hue for Depth & Atmosphere 114 Using Hue for Vegetation 118 Skin Tones 120 Specific Colors 126 Handling Opposites 128 Handling Adjacents 130 Handling Subtleties 136 CREATIVE CHOICES 140 Thinking in Black & White 142 The Range of Light: Adams & the Westons 144 The Long Range of Gray: Paul Strand 146 Mid-tones 148 Contrast High 150 Contrast Low 154 Shadow & Darkness: Brandt & McCullin 156 Low Key 158 High Key & Graphic: Callahan & Hosoe 160 High Key 162 Digital Zone System 166 HDR in Black & White 172 Tone Mapping without HDR 180 Adding Tints 182 Old Process Effect 184 Glossary 186 Index 190

INTRODUCTION Black-and-white photography occupies a unique place in the world of art and imaging, all the more surprising because within the world of photography it is taken so much for granted. What I will attempt in this book is to jolt black and white out of its normally complacent position, and in this I m helped by the completely changed circumstances of digital photography.

hy complacent? Because black and Wwhite has become so established as the senior tradition of photography over the course of more than a century that its reasons for being are only rarely questioned. For many people, perhaps most, black-and-white photography just is. I just re-read a volume on the history of photography by Ian Jeffrey, titled Photography: A Concise History that appeared in Thames & Hudson s World of Art series, where black and white is so much assumed to be center stage that color fills just three pages out of 240. This is by no means unusual, but it is hard to justify simply on the grounds that there were more years spent in black and white than in color. It also won t do for the modern world of digital photography, in which the choice of one or the other is in the face of every photographer each time they decide to process on the computer. It seems that most photographers, when they are shooting or processing, inhabit a world of photography alone, and only a few see their work in the wider context of art. I have to say seems because there is no way of quantifying this, but what is not in doubt is this: In the entire body of writing and discussion on photography, references to painting or any other graphic art are very thin on the ground. This is a little strange, not to say short-sighted, but it s part of the reality of our photographic world. There are historical reasons for this, as there are, well, philosophical reasons. From the other side of the fence the unconstrained art side there has been more acceptance of photography. A fairly recent phenomenon, which tends to set many photographers teeth on edge, is the appropriation of photography by artists who do not claim to be primarily photographers. In other words, contemporary artists invade photography more than photography invades art. And it is this unmistakable sense of photography being its own world, very largely self-contained, that allows us to be complacent about black and white. It s just something that photography grew up with. Now, however, things are on the move, which is what I want to explore in this book. The Black & White Tradition 7 Digital Monochrome Creative Choices