Yesterday I played with a 90mm lens and the idea of black and white imaging. How to find the tones I like. Not the ones in the textbook..

 

I think it is impossible to explain to anyone else how you see. Literally, how your eyes and your brain interpret the things in front of you that enter your consciousness via your eyeballs, your optic nerves and the interpolation of your own, unique, "Bayer" filter. It's a time honored tradition in philosophy to wonder if the way one person sees the color red is the same way, exactly, that another person sees the color red. When we use science to try and figure out what works and what doesn't we end up with an empty embracing of... "the average." But it's entirely possible that the science is wrong and that colors and shapes are rendered either vaguely or radically different from person to person and culture to culture. 

In 1939 or 1940 (or both) photographer, Ansel Adams, came up with a system for exposing and developing black and white films in a way that gave the resulting material a wide range of tones. The widest range that would fit well on photographic paper and at the same time accurately reflect; to him! the tonality of the scene the camera captured. Tight regulation of time and temperature of development would create a negative with more contrast (a more limited number of steps between full black and full white) or a negative with less contrast ( many more finer steps between the extremes. Also referred to as a "flat" negative). 

The lesser minds of photography, from then until today, embraced the idea that more tones was better. That more tones was more "accurate" and that making more tones and trying (desperately) to shove them onto the four or five stops of dynamic range of photographic paper represented the "correct" and unimpeachable approach to making photographs. These practitioners and misguided interpreters of Ansel Adam's intention delight in making images in which the widest range of gray tones possible must be represented in a photographic image while giving a cavalier nod to the notion that a tiny bit of pure black and an equally tiny bit of white should also be present somewhere in the print or digital image in order to represent accurately the full scale. Open shadows and discernible highlight details were the main targets of the exercise. 

In many ways the folks who still practice the endless gray aesthetic resemble the fanatics of mid-epic digital imaging in their search for whatever the latest obsession was, in line with technical advances; photos of kitty whiskers to show of the ultimate in image resolution and sharpness. HDR overkill to show off ever improved dynamic range. And kilo acres of images not meant to show off content or point of view but to prove a technical concept. High resolution and high dynamic range became the grandchildren of the quest for ever longer grayscale tonal ranges. But the grandfathers of black and white photography are still beating the old horse. 

Thank goodness for photographers like Bill Brandt, Daido Moriyama and so many others who showed us, emphatically, that shadows could be inky black and highlights at the extreme could blow out to white, and that the higher contrast would serve the image, serve the vision and serve the aesthetic in a way that slavishly following Adams's basic tool for negative expansion could not duplicate. It's instructive to all that many of Adams's prints are filled with blocked shadows. They impart an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to whether a print or digital image is captivating, exciting, melodic and engaging. 

Flat black and white images were a temporary partial fix to the fact that materials in 1940 didn't print well in offset printing. Blacks tended to fill up too quickly on the presses and a shift to restore detail in shadows by making them lighter and flatter had the effect of killing the highlights. Beginning with a flatter negative, and then a flatter print gave offset press operators more options, more chances at getting a good half tone from a printing press. Real artists understood this and worked around it for the most part. But a contemporary John Sexton print of maple trees makes highly effective use of black and white, as well as the necessary grays, to make beautiful images. His secret is to mix in contrast to the art print. That's what give it life. Looking at original prints by Edward Weston informs me that he never intended his print to be primarily made for mechanical reproduction but were considered destined to be framed and displayed. His blacks testify to this.

Anyway, I was playing around trying to see how to get what I like out of my camera, lens and post processing (we have so many more options toward success today with post processing...).  I used my camera and lens set up as a black and white system with the Leica "High Contrast Monochrome" setting engaged and shot in the Jpeg format. I like an inky black. I don't fear deep shadows. I've grown up in Texas where the sun is bright and highly collimated on cloud free days. It seems natural to me to see shadows that seem, when juxtaposed next to subjects in full sun, as black as can be. I worked to represent this as accurately as my own preferences allowed. I am not above raising the shadows a bit and I'm always in favor of adding significant contrast to mid-tones. I find very flat prints very boring and staid; like experiments in 1950's half tone printing. But a beautiful black goes a long way toward anchoring a look.

Here are things I photographed in order to practice with the tones. Some images were shot about two stops under what the camera meter suggested. Some less. But none anywhere near the null point of the meter. Saving the highlights and dealing with shadows and deep mid-tones in post.

No detail in the middle person's cap. No detail in the left hand person's white shirt. No elevated shadows. Much more personalized than stylized.