Check it out here: https://fstopandlisten.podbean.com/e/009-chris-williams/

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Let’s face it; we live in a world of saturated colors. In recent years it seems that the popularity of a photo is dictated by the ‘wow factor’. Saturated colors, composites and over the top scenes are what currently drive much of the landscape photography that we see on social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, Flickr and yes even 500px. When it comes to popularity those are the images that go viral and sell like hot cakes (at least for some people). It really begs the question; is black white landscape photography dead? I realize that this might be a bit of a bold question, but I think that it’s relevant. Stay with me.

Black and white photography got it’s start long before color photography was even possible. It was essentially the father of modern day photography, but ironically, many people treat it as more of a novelty today in landscape photography. I think part of this is due to the fact that we only see the world in color through the camera’s viewfinder, image preview or in the Raws that we capture. Seeing the world in color forces us into a creative corner, so to speak. There are a handful of cameras on the market that offer black and white film modes (Fujifilm and Olympus) and even one camera that currently shoots solely in black in white; the Leica M Monochrome, but outside of that you’re really left to your own devices as far as imagining what a composition could look like in black and white. That’s where the major road block hits most photographers; when you’re out shooting you don’t typically take the time to think “Hey this would look amazing in monochrome!”. Let’s face it, that just isn’t a reality for most folks. Most of that realization occurs when you’re in the digital dark room editing your images and you realize that the colors don’t work or the light is begging for a higher contrast edit. That’s when the lightbulb kicks on and you think to yourself “Let’s try a quick mono conversion!”, and bingo you just fell back in love with the image that was causing you so much processing grief (admittedly, I’ve been guilty of this at times).

I’m going to make a bit of a blatant statement here, but I think that black and white photography largely comes as an after thought for most landscape photographers today. Sure, there’s a handful of us out there that shoot almost exclusively for black and white, but I would venture to guess that we’re in a small minority. So with that said, what can happen if you start to solely shoot for the purpose of producing black and white imagery?

Color Management Issues Become Irrelevant

I think that most of the landscape photography community can agree that saturation has gotten a bit out of hand over the past few years. Color bombs are everywhere and they’re an endless source of frustration for many of us. By eliminating the color in the image, it really forces you to pay attention to the subject, the lines, the contrast and the light. Color can, in some cases, really
take away from the overall appeal of the image, especially if you over-do it (everyone seems to have a different opinion of how much is too much and they aren’t afraid to tell you in most cases). Color theory and color management can become a huge point of frustration, especially if your monitor calibration is off, but these frustration become largely irrelevant in black and white photography. Even though the color issues may disappear, luminosity becomes more important than ever.

Luminosity Control is Key

It’s important to point out that colors will present themselves in a variety of shades when converted to black and white and luminosity plays an even more important role in your photos. Maintaining the luminosity (the perceived brightness of a color) of the colors present in your image during a black and white conversion is extremely important. The luminosity effects how the grays are perceived in your image. Red, green and blue will all present themselves differently when they are converted to Greyscale.

Red (left), green (center) and blue (right) are converted to their greyscale equivalents in the above image. This is roughly the way our eyes interpret those colors; 30% Red, 60% Green and 10% Blue, where the Green lightness is double that of the Red, much like our eyes see; there are double the number of Green color filters on a camera’s Bayer array as compared to the Red and Blue. As you can see luminosity, or perceived brightness, is much more important in a black and white image. The bottom line is that if you’re going to remove color from your image, you need to know how the greyscale tones relate to each other and how to control how they are presented in your image. The nice thing about this is that it really comes down to personal preference and how you want your image to look. Changing the luminosity of the above shades of grey can dramatically change the look and mood of your image. It’s important to keep this in mind when you’re in the field because the colors in your composition can and will shape how your image will translate to black and white. 

Presentation of light becomes critical 

One of the most important aspects of black and white landscape photography is the presentation of light and shadow; it can dramatically change the overall impact of the image. The key is to emphasize the light that is already present in your image. When you’re in the field pay attention to how the directionality, the quantity, the quality and the brightness of the light impacts the overall scene. It’s equally important to look at how the shadows and dark regions in your composition effect the overall image as well.
Placing an emphasis on light and dark, while maintaining a level of detail is really one of the best ways to give your monochrome photos a more dynamic and three dimensional feel and that process really begins the moment you take the image. When you start to pre-visualize your images in black and white, you really start paying attention to how light and shadow are presented throughout the scene. This can be difficult to do in the field, but with practice it almost becomes second nature. If done correctly; the presentation of light and shadow can really take your black and white imagery to the next level. 

Black and white landscape photography really lends itself to more dramatic post processing. In a sense the realism of the photo is changed dramatically once color is eliminated. This allows you to become much more flexible than you otherwise might be with respect to post processing. The photography of Ansel Adams is a great example of this in that he used fairly dramatic post processing in the darkroom to emphasize light, lines and the overall composition. Don’t be afraid to push your artistic limits in the black and white medium to really emphasize the light that is present in the scene.   

Lines, shapes and patterns are emphasized

When color is eliminated, the lines, patterns and shapes that are left behind are emphasized and can be emphasized even more through post processing. Repeating patterns and textures can add a great deal of visual value to your black and white imagery. With that in mind; black and white photography and abstract/intimate scenes can compliment each other quite nicely. Subjects that have repeating patterns like stands of trees and succulent plants provide an amazing starting point for a black and white conversion. Subjects like water can work extremely well as leading lines in a composition; think of the water as a bright line carving through the dark regions in your composition. Anytime that you notice a pattern or a distinct line in your composition; chances are that you should be able to emphasize that feature even more though a black and white conversion.

Composition is King

A black and white conversion places strong emphasis on your composition. Since color is irrelevant, you really have to make sure that your composition is fairly strong to begin with. Some compositions just won’t do well in a conversion. If the light is relatively flat or if the image is largely one color with no repeating patterns or shapes a black and white conversion just may not work. Don’t force it. It’s important to not only realize the strengths of the medium, but also the weaknesses as well. If the conversion feels forced, chances are it probably is. Pay attention to your composition and how the light and shadow emphasize or detract from it; this will be critical to the overall success of your image.

Is Shooting Film the Answer?

Pre-visualizing your compositions in black and white can be pretty darn difficult, especially in the field when the light is changing and the conditions are deteriorating. One of the best decisions that I recently made was to shoot my Olympus OM10 (I know not the best 35mm film camera; working on picking up an OM-2n) with Ilford HP5 Plus ISO 400 black and white film. I know this sounds like crazy talk, but shooting with black and white film really forces you to visualize your compositions in black and white. It’s actually helped me a great deal and I’m looking forward to seeing how much this endeavor will impact my shooting with my a7R.

Final Word

I know, I know I still haven’t answered the question; is black and white landscape photography dead? The answer in short is no, absolutely not. In fact I think it’s more important than ever given the direction that the field is headed. In fact I think that black and white photography may actually save the field as we know it today and photographers like Sarah Marino are driving that point home more than ever before. In a sense the medium forces you to focus on the basics of photography, the bare bones if you will. Composition, leading lines, subject and light are all critical to the success of a black and white image. Throw color into the mix and a lot of those factors can take a back seat. I’m not saying that color can make up for a weak composition, but I think that it can distract from a strong one, if it isn’t managed correctly.

Giving black and white landscape photography a chance just might change the way you see photography today. It can be a powerful medium if implemented correctly and it just might be what the field needs to get back to the basics of what makes a photograph truly speak to the viewer. It may not be for everyone and it may not work in every situation, but it can certainly make a huge impact in the way you view photography today given the right conditions.

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The journey to this photo started at Isolation Lake in the Upper Enchantments Core. We decided to take a jaunt up to the summit of Little Annapurna, break down camp and head down to the Perfection Lake area to set up camp. The weather had been really nice all morning through the early afternoon but as we entered the Enchantments Core the clouds started to roll in and the weather was starting to turn. Believe it or not I actually pretty stoked about it as the sun had been out in full force without a cloud in sight for two days; not the best photographic conditions for sunrise and sunset photos. After navigating some pretty ridiculous terrain we set up camp just above Perfection Lake. Our campsite was set up on a series of flat granite slabs, very exposed to the elements and to the massive amount of goats in the area.

I scouted out this prime location for what I had hoped to be an awesome sunset. I ended up waiting for a long time, a very long time for the conditions to break up enough for some nice light. I was camped out on a pretty small rock, surrounded by angry goats in the middle of this waterfall that dumps into the lake below. Okay so maybe they weren’t exactly angry but there were a couple big guys that frankly freaked me out a bit. Lucky enough for us they pretty much did their own thing. Toward the end of the sunset we finally got some really nice light which made all of the standing around, freezing our butts off well worth the wait. That night I was in my bivvy camped out on the exposed slabs when one of the most intense thunderstorms I’ve ever experienced rolled through.

Let me preface this by saying I’ve been through some pretty damn intense storms but this one genuinely freaked me out a bit. The thunder and lightning were pretty much right on top of each other and our awesome choice to set up camp was right in the middle of it. Awesome. I seriously contemplated getting out to snag some shots, but quickly realized what a horrible idea that was being that we were so exposed so I decided to hunker down. My next fear was that the stream I was next to was going to overflow and wipe me out; thankfully that didn’t happen but the amount of rain that was coming down sure as hell made me think otherwise. It was pretty epic to say the least and to this day I still don’t know how we managed to get out of it unscathed. Never a dull moment in the Enchantments.

Perfection Lake, Enchantments Core, WA

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My number one goal is to make image processing a fun and enjoyable experience that doesn’t have to take hours upon hours in the ‘digital darkroom’. Whether it be for your own enjoyment or to sell your work in the form of fine art prints my simple approach to image processing allows for large scale printing and enjoyment of your work. 

Post Processing Zoom Sessions:

• $120.00/Hour and multi class package deals are available 
• Sessions are recorded for future reference and will be emailed to you directly after the class for you to keep
• In depth tutorials on how I achieve my signature ‘look’ 

We can cover a wide range of topics during these Zoom sessions; some of which include the following:

• Compositional theory
• In field techniques
• General image processing
• Advanced post processing techniques
• Perspective blending
• Exposure blending
• Focus stacking  
• Night photography image processing

And more!

Here are a few examples of Before and After Images using my Black and White post processing techniques:

Contact me to schedule a time today!

Feel free to email me at cwexplorationphotography@gmail.com for scheduling, Zoom session package rates and additional questions. 

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Here’s a moody black and white image of a gorgeous sunset at Ruby Beach, WA

Prior to starting this project I had worked with various monochrome techniques (producing photos with one hue of color such as blue) but I had never really, truly worked within the constraints of a true black and white framework.  I’ve always loved traditional black and white landscape photography but for personal reasons I always felt that I couldn’t fully convey the mood, the light and the overall atmosphere that I try to capture in my work.  It turns out that I was completely wrong.  I think that working within the constraints of a black and white medium really forces you to pay attention to the light, the contrast and the tonality in your RAW images.  A lot of folks tend to think that black and white photography is too old school or that you can’t apply today’s techniques to that art form or that it’s just bland. That stigma can largely be attributed to the way we view photography in social media today.  Everyone has become such a mass consumer of images, videos and other media that anything that lacks color or is subtle in nature tends to get overlooked.  I know that folks in the landscape photography community tend to pay attention to those subtle things, but as a whole I think that most folks love seeing the photos that pop and scream “Look at me!!”.

Black and white photography is not easy and it’s not for the faint of heart.  I actually think that working within the medium itself forces you to take big risks since it will only appeal to a select number of individuals outside of the landscape and fine art community.  I think the biggest reason for this is that the market has been saturated by folks that simply click a filter setting in their camera or do a quick change to black and white using Silver Efex or the built in Photoshop or Lightroom plugins that they may not have seen a true fine art black and white image.  I’m not knocking the use of these tools; in fact I think that they are a great starting place, but you definitely have to move beyond those plugins and understand that black and white images can offer just as much complexity in shadows, light, contrast and tone as their counterparts do in color.  Shifting your mindset and artistic vision is critically important to understanding the complex subtleties that black and white images implore and in doing so I hope that your eyes will be opened to the possibilities within the medium. 

An Experiment in Light

Breathless in Mono, Glacier National Park, Montana

When I first started working within the medium of black and white landscape photography one of the initial challenges that I came across was how to portray light, mood and atmosphere that I look to achieve in color images in a black and white framework.  I took many of the same techniques that I employ in my normal photos over to a monochrome framework and some worked and well some didn’t.  I think the toughest thing to accomplish is giving your monochrome images the same depth and dynamic range that you see in color images.  In order to do this I utilized luminosity masks, various high contrast layers, dodging and burning and my own version of a black and white conversion.

My process is a bit drawn out but my first steps always involve editing an image in color first to really get a feel for the light play, the shadow complexities and the overall mood and atmosphere of the image.  I then try to gain the same results within the black and white medium.  I think that first editing the photo as you would in color really allows you to breath more life into your monochrome or traditional black and white images.  Ansel Adams, Sebastian Salgado and even the painter Albert Bierstadt all utilized techniques to emphasize light and to show contrast and light play between the sources of light and darkness in the medium they were working in.  Putting emphasis on light and dark while maintaining a level of detail is really one of the best ways to give your monochrome photos a more dynamic and three dimensional feel.

What Photos Work Well in Monochrome?

Beauty Within in Mono, Mt. St. Helens, WA

This is honestly a pretty loaded question.  I think that all photos can work well in monochrome, to a certain extent, dependent upon how you process them and what your final artistic vision is for the photo. I think the ones that work the best though are photos that are dynamic in light, shadows and contrast.  Photos that achieve a great deal of depth through layering and photos that may not have that dynamic color range that you’re looking for.  Typically we are used to seeing extremely long exposure seascapes or just images that involve water in general portrayed in black and white because the soft tones and exposure settings really lend themselves to portrayal in monochrome.  That stigma has definitely begun to shift as folks like Luke Austin, Marc Adamus and Alister Benn present their fine art images within a black and white framework and I think that we may start seeing a resurgence in the treatment itself.  Many of their images depict that photos of all types can work well within the medium and that portrayal of light, mood, atmosphere and detail can be just as effective in a world without color.

I think the bottom line is don’t be afraid to think outside of the box and to try new techniques.  Personally, I find that working outside of my comfort zone forces me to become a more well rounded artist and it also forces me to change my perception on a number of things in the landscape photography field and community.

If all else fails if you’re not happy with how a photo is turning out in color, try editing it in monochrome; you might be pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

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A photograph is a powerful thing and as a photographer the ultimate goal is to bring life, to evoke emotion and to initiate a spark; a spark that can flourish even in the darkest of times. Each and every exposure has meaning, be it symbolic, raw or natural. My goal is to create imagery that resonates with the viewer and inspires them. That being said I think it’s important to understand the impact that photographs can have. It’s important that photographers, and the visitors that they inspire, take care of the lands that we are so passionate about through sustainable photographic principles. I work hard to ensure that the places that I photograph will be there for future generations to enjoy, and I encourage everyone whom visits these areas to do the same.

Landscapes are in a constant ebb and flow, be it from naturally occurring events, or human impact. My number one goal is to take the human element out of the equation. Sustainable landscape photography principles and leave no trace practices are the cornerstone to my teaching methods and my thoughts on moving the field forward in positive direction. Our connection with nature couldn’t be more important than it is now, and my hope is that these photographs inspire others to learn, explore and to respect the lands that we are lucky enough to call home.

About Me

I’m a 34 year old writer and award winning Seattle area based landscape photographer with a serious passion for the outdoors, specializing in Pacific Northwest and Desert Southwest Landscape photography. Whether it’s climbing, hiking or snowboarding, you can always find me in the mountains or on the water. I’ve always loved to share my experiences and stories with others, but sometimes words fail to describe some of the breathtaking scenery I’ve had the privilege to see in Washington, Utah and abroad. That’s where the photographs come in. Landscape photography has allowed me to share some amazing experiences and stunning landscapes with others and gives me a sort of satisfaction that is second to none.

Nature has always been a huge part of my life. My parents instilled an early love for the outdoors in me from about the time I could walk. We had a small piece of land over in the Hood Canal area, namely Lake Cushman, WA. I would get lost for hours on the small trails behind our lot. Something about the swaying trees and the damp ferns drew me into the unknown. I can still remember the smell of the forest floor rich with moss and dew crunching beneath my feet; memories like that greatly influenced my love for the outdoors later in life and had a huge impact on me at a young age.

My dad actually dabbled in photography a lot in his early 20’s and we had a few of his landscape images hanging in our house. In thinking about it now it definitely had an impact on me from an artistic perspective. He was also very much into watercolors and pastels and he actually sold a few of his pieces when I was younger. Watching him work on his art pieces; how he played with light, texture and lines really has influenced how I visualize and conceptualize my work today.  My workflow has definitely been impacted by his work as well as the work of the Hudson River School painters such as Albert Bierstadt. 

My parents gave me my first point and shoot; an old Fuji film camera, when I was fairly young and I could honestly completely lose track of time in the forests or even in my backyard taking photos of anything that piqued my interest. As a teen I took a step back from art and nature as I was heavily involved in sports and I was honestly so busy I didn’t make time for those things. It wasn’t until my early 20’s that I found myself back in my hiking boots. I picked up a Canon point and shoot just to document my various hiking trips and soon found myself trading in my boots and trekking poles for crampons and ice axes.

The mountains were calling my name and I quickly found myself yearning for summit bids and epic adventure. It was then that I realized it was time to get back into photography. I had seen some amazing things and had so many stories but sometimes the words and descriptions wouldn’t suffice; the camera was the answer. I picked up my first DSLR ten years ago and I’ve never looked back.

Photography has opened my eyes in ways I never could have imagined. I now see the world from a completely different perspective; one of sweeping lines, changing light, beautiful foregrounds and endless possibilities. When you’re behind the lens the world is really what you make it, you’re the artist and nature is your canvas. There’s simply nothing like it.

Contact Information: cwexplorationphotography@gmail.com

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Fine Art Pacific Northwest Landscape & Nature Photography

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