When I began to learn photography it was all about color for me. In fact I looked for images with lots of bold color and then used a slide film that would make them even more saturated. At the time my influences were Ernst Haas and Jay Maisel. You can read more about Haas in my post ‘But You Have to See in Photography.’ I dabbled a little with black and white but that was only when I took a basic darkroom class. I used black and white film and worked in the darkroom just like everyone else did when learning darkroom skills. At the time I did not take it very seriously and it was more of a vehicle to learn basic techniques and then to move on to using the color darkroom.
It wasn’t until I entered graduate school that I found the joys of working in black and white. I am not sure how the transition happened. A few years before I became more and more interested in photojournalism and documentary photography. I began looking at the classic work of the Farm Security Administration (FSA.) This is the group of photographers that did some stunning documentary work around the United States during the depression era. They were originally conceived just as a vehicle to record the state of the country for the Federal government. But the photographers that were hired were some of the best and most artistic of the day. This group included legendary photographers Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Gordon Parks, and Arthur Rothstein. For me this was the height of photojournalism in America. All of their work is in black and white and it really helped to create the ideal form for me. When I entered graduate school I had already begun using black and white film as part of my documentary work. At the time it was a very pure style and my photo hero was Sebastaio Salgado. You can read more about him in my post ‘Why We Photograph.’ In graduate school I began to pursue more of a fine art direction and then applied it to a documentary photography approach. At that time all I did was black and white. I processed up to 40 rolls of medium format film a week, made countless contact sheets, and many prints. After doing this for the better part of three years I was totally absorbed in the black and white world.
When digital came around I began to experiment with it. I bought my first digital SLR camera in 2000, just as I was finishing up graduate school. At the time I wanted to learn more about digital photography because I knew that it would be the next big thing. But I did not do much black and white work with digital. At the time it was difficult to make a good black and white digital print. Also, converting the color files to monotone was not very good either. It wasn’t until the past few years with advancements in printing technology and computer technology that I have returned to black and white imagery and printing.
You will probably start seeing me post more and more images here in black and white. My dream is that some client will let me produce a complete wedding album in black and white and in a classic photojournalistic style. Fortunately, many people are rediscovering the beauty of this artform.
Gary Miller
Houston Fine Art Wedding Photographer
Eye Candy and Brain Veggies
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[...] really love black and white photography. I had a recent post that was my ‘Ode to Black and White Photography.’ For about ten years I was exclusively a black and white fine art photography, shooting [...]
[...] white. If you are interested in learning more about black and white photography see my posts ‘Ode to Black and White Photography‘ , and ‘The Allure of Black and White [...]