Black & White Landscape Photography

February 08, 2019

One of the reasons I love to shoot Black & White Landscape is that it tends to have a certain timeless, classic quality to the images. Maybe I still think of monochrome as a throw back to days gone by in my photographic past where I spent many hours in a traditional dark room processing film and prints as part of my employment working for press, a job I completely enjoyed & loved.

But time moves on, and now we have computers with beautiful 4K monitors, fantastic programs and software such as Capture One, Adobe Photoshop and many others that have nearly replaced the traditional darkroom with all its chemicals and smells with what we now refer to as The Lightroom with all its comforts, speed & efficiencies.

I prefer to work in front of a well calibrated monitor these days but still in a fairly traditional way by dodging & burning, adding shape, contrast and texture, I can spend hours on an image, sometimes longer, because a mono image void of colour can add an additional layer of complexity that resonates smooth gradation of tone from deep black, across the greys to the brightest white, only monochrome pictures covey this, don’t get me wrong, I love colour photography, where would we be without beautiful vibrant colours, but sometimes colour in a picture can only serve as a distraction. So thats my take on monochrome landscape photography but there's a thing to remember when your out facing the elements and there's a storm blowing right in your face, when you think its time to pack up and go home, just listen to that voice in your head telling you "when the weather's shite go black and white"