On Black and White Photography . . . and Cheating
On Black and White Photography
There truly is something special about black and white photography. The better one can understand the nuanced (or not so nuanced) differences between successful color and successful black and white images, the better chance one has of actually seeing images in one or the other and making a successful image. Sometimes, the same image can be made and will be successful either way, Sometimes the same subject needs to be treated just a bit differently when going from color to black and white. And sometimes you have an image that could be very interesting in one medium and not the other. I came across just one of those last types of images recently and had to run down a couple flights of stairs to get the Q2MR before the light changed too much.
The adage about black and white photography is that one needs to focus (pardon the pun) on forms and patterns and, in particular, how the light helps accentuate them. I’ve always believed that a good understanding of black and white photography helps one’s color photography because the structure that forms, textures and patterns give to an image in black and white also greatly helps color images. I’m not sure it works much in the opposite direction though. Understanding color (as opposed to tonal values) and how to make an image “about” color, doesn’t often benefit seeing in black and white. At least I’ve yet to figure out a relationship. However, there are times that color adds nothing to an image, or even worse, detracts from it, and that’s an indicator that maybe the image isn’t a color image (but then again, doesn’t necessarily mean it will work in black and white either).
So take the image below for example. Being a black and white image, I did not have to worry whether the color of the floor somehow clashed with the color of the light entering the room. Or whether the gray door-stop was too warm a gray for the near-black lines in the laundry bag. Or whether even the background coloration of the white door didn’t quite match the background coloration of the white closet doors (or the background coloration of the white bag).
Photographing this subject in black and white let me focus on the elements of the image, their relationships within the frame, the textures and patterns cast by shadows in the image, and how direct and reflected light helped give shape to the main subjects. It’s a simple found image that was photographed the way I immediately saw it (I probably should have pulled up on the bag to remove the wrinkle on the bottom . . . but it’s a found image).
As I worked with this image on the monitor, I decided I should see how it would turn out printed. So I developed a version for printing and printed it as large as I could on one of the last 13”x19” sheets of my favorite Red River Paolo Duro Soft Gloss Rag. It has all of the qualities that I could hope for. The image comes across in three dimensions, the different materials (floor, door, bag, door-stop) visually feel different, the light has that glow of evening light. Nothing was lost, either by the size of the image or the fact that it was in black and white. Indeed, the subtle and ever varying tonal changes in the print comes across even richer than what appears on the monitor. The print really invites the eye to explore within the frame, and despite the simple appearing subject matter, there is much to discover.
This is an image that works in black and white. I’m not so sure it would work in color. And that’s the thing, with the Q2MR, I have no way of really finding out. That camera really has gotten me thinking in ways I hadn’t before digitally. It’s like the old days - put a roll of black and white film into the camera and you’d better start seeing in black and white.
That’s not such a bad thing is it?
On Cheating
As simple as this image is, it doesn’t mean that it didn’t raise a slew of issues both while making the photograph and afterwards. That’s what the second half of this post is about.
I’ve mentioned before how I so long for having the controls for image making that I had with my old view camera. The rise-fall/shift functions of a view camera allow one to look up or down, or even sideways, while still keeping vertical lines vertical (or horizontal - horizontal) - an obvious advantage when photographing architectural subjects. The tilt-swing function allows one to manipulate the plane of focus and the resulting depth of field in certain situations. I have sorely missed both.
So much in fact that I have repeatedly considered how to bring that back into my photography life. As I mentioned in the “Once in a Lifetime” post, I’ve considered buying a 4x5 view camera and the Fujiiflm GX680 medium format camera, both of which have rise/fall, tilt/swing functions. I’ve also considered purchasing Nikon or Canon tilt/shift lenses and converting them to use on my Fuji cameras (come on Fuji, why don’t you make some tilt/shift lenses?) as well as purchasing a Combo Actus, which is basically a view camera that you tack on your digital camera or digital back to the rear standard. I have yet to pull the trigger on any of those options.
Well, this image brought that whole discussion back into my head. If you look at the image above, everything is aligned with precision. The lines on the doors are vertical, and the placement of everything seems intentioned (because it is). It’s the type of image that I would spend quite a bit of time getting just right with my view camera to make a 4x5 negative. It’s not immediately noticeable (because who wants to be too blatant?) but you’re actually looking down into the top of the laundry sack . . . just as you would with a lowered front standard on a view camera. Yet the Q2MR does not have that ability.
The reality is that the image has been adjusted in Capture One to correct for the tilting of the camera. Here’s the full frame of the image as recorded by the sensor. I will note that the .jpg image was cropped to show me frame lines for a 35mm lens instead of the normal 28 mm lens, and that the DNG actually has an ever so slightly wider area that it captures than the 28mm lens (so there is even more “negative” to work with), but as you can see from the image below, the converging vertical lines (most apparent on the very left hand side) clearly reveals I’m looking downward to make this image.
I was fully conscious of that “effect” when I was making the series of exposures that evening, because after I’d made images I was confident reflected what had immediately captured my eye, I tried to correct for that convergence with a couple of latter exposures by holding the camera back parallel to the wall so vertical lines would be vertical.
You can see below the results of that effort - trying to keep the same size relationships between the elements yet maintaining vertical lines required me to reposition the height of the lens. The problem is, if you want to look “down” into the laundry bag, you have to be much higher (and farther away) to do that, and you waste a large portion of the frame in doing so. The result was I lowered the position of the camera, which changes the image a bit.
To me, the fact that you cannot see into the bag diminishes the effect of the image. All of the images I made where you can see into the top of the bag are stronger than those you can’t.
So I resorted to digitally correcting the image I chose to use. Here’s a screen shot of just how much the image I made had to be distorted to get the vertical lines to be vertical.
So the question is, is that cheating? I don’t know; I’m still thinking about it.
The Q2MR gives me a lot of pixels to work with, so photographing in a way that leaves room to make adjustments does not have a lot of negative consequences. Is there anything wrong with letting technology correct things? If there are limits, what are they? And yes, I realize that the answers to those questions reflect totally personal choices.
I will crop images (in fact I have to with the Q2MR - I rarely “see” images in its 28mm focal length and much rather prefer the 35mm digital crop), but, especially with my other cameras, I would much rather frame the image as I see it using the right focal length lens and photograph it that way (which is why I wish Fuji and Leica would add the ability to change to different aspect ratios for their mirrorless cameras). I may not be Henri Cartier-Bresson (you knew I had to find a way to get that in there), but his insistence on having his images printed or shown full frame (to include showing the black, clear film, border of the image) has just that issue in mind - major creative decisions get made at the time of making an image and you’re looking through a frame, that should influence the final product. But in my mind there are limits to what one should do. So despite the fact I may crop images, I’d never accept adding in an artificial sky into an image. It’s a question of where are the various limits for me?
I used to say that I felt totally comfortable doing anything in the digital darkroom that I could do in the wet darkroom. So things like overall contrast and tonal controls (different films/developers, paper grades/developers), visual sharpness of images (optics used, film/developer combinations), localized exposures (burning and dodging), vignetting (vignetting) are things I have no qualms about doing in Capture One to digital files.
Based on that, I should have no problems with what I did with this image. Ansel Adams in his book “The Print” (my printing Bible in the wet darkroom days) discusses the issue of converging lines and the need to occasionally correct for them (despite one’s best efforts to get it right in camera) during the printing process. It involves propping up one edge of the paper easel until the converging lines are corrected, and then using the tilt function of the lens mount (as you would with a view camera) to adjust the plane of focus to run along the papers surface. If I recall correctly, I used that technique exactly 3 times (once I recall without satisfaction - it just looked wrong, even though it was “correct”). So at one level, this image does not bother me. It’s not “cheating” to use Capture One to do that same thing . . . is it?
I guess what’s nagging at me is the question of how willing am I to make that a common approach to photographing? Photograph wider than I normally would, knowing I’m going to correct for converging lines (or whatever else) and will lose some of the frame doing so, and knowing that I’ve got enough megapixels that I could throw a good number of them away and still have plenty to work with. Or doing so for cropping purposes. There’s something fundamentally disturbing about that approach, particularly when viewed in light of the notion of seeing and image and the craft of photographing, and with that, the process of making an image in the field and getting it right in camera. I can’t say I’m a strict adherent to that approach, but given my preferences, yes, that is a better way (read: more enjoyable way) to work. On the other hand, the Q2MR is a fixed lens camera; with it I either photograph everything at 28mm, or utilize the digital crop function it provides, or crop at will within the frame. Which should it be?
t’s probably a good thing to be thinking about issues like this now because technology is doing some incredible things (as if it hasn’t already) both known and unknown. Programs are coming out that have the ability to sharpen your images, even very out of focus images, using AI. Nearly all lenses already have software corrections for the design imperfections for the lens (calling into question whether one needs to pay for “good” glass when software can fix it all). Some of that is driven by the fact that digital sensors are so much more unforgiving than film is, but part of it is just the computer revolution and the rise of the Borg, I mean AI.
So is it “cheating”? I don’t know, but it is a tool. The answer is not necessarily a rigid one, but may also depend upon circumstances. Then again, maybe it is time to get some a camera that allows me to have tilt/swing functions, at least for use in certain situations. Or not.
For now, I suspect I’ll try to do as much as I can to get it right in camera . . . and resort to the tools necessary to make the image I want when I can’t do it in camera. And to think about this question a whole lot more. Preferably while I continue to photograph more and more.