68
B+W
natural light. Quite literally, it
helped shine a light on things.L
ight is everything. It’s
what makes b&w black
and white. I never stop
learning about it. It’s
both a practical tool and an
emotionally charged force. But
I do have to remind myself to
keep practising with it, in order
to experience its full potential,
both at the capture and post-
capture stages. One aspect of
this practice is to develop a
vocabulary for light, to explore
its many, varied possibilities.
For example, I remember
suggesting to a mathematically
minded workshop client, who
was struggling with when and
how to use the light-controlling
Curves tool in Photoshop, to see
it as an ‘emotional’ slider rather
than think of it as a numerical
tool. His grasp of this mental
image was immediate.
A helpful tradition underpins
the Photoshop Curves interface.
The adjustable curve sits on
a grid that is divided into
10 evenly divided sections,
just like the old 10-stop film
photography Zone system, with
which we can quantitatively
alter a subject’s brightness and
tonality. In terms of vocabulary,
we can also think of this as
altering the picture’s mood,
relying on our individual
sensibility, rather than numbers,
to sense how much and to what
emotional effect. In darkroom
terms, brightening or darkening
parts of the print were known as
dodging and burning. I’m sure
we can think of an evocative
word for the notion of ‘practice’
that I have been discussing here.
Maybe it’s ‘photography’?envisagebooks.com
openstudioworkshops.com›Just like the time on the Ponte
Vecchio, I was initially drawn
to what was most obvious about
the location – the beauty of
the beach and the dramatic,
architectural appeal of the
rocks. And then there was also
the eye-catching, bright white
plethora of discarded oyster
shells. It was hard to make
photographic sense of what I
was looking at or looking for.I knew I wanted to get beyond
the obvious, of making pictures
of these subjects as ‘things’,
to find another way of seeingthem. I decided to simplify
my approach, to turn the
situation into an exercise –
to practise working with‘Light is everything. It’s
what makes b&w black
and white. I never stop
learning about it. It’s
both a practical tool
and an emotionally
charged force.’Above The realisation
To paraphrase the idiom: sometimes we can’t see the photographic potential of
a rock or a shell for the beach. To make things easier, I asked myself a singular
question: what type of light would bring out the inherent quality of each subject
or, in this case, evoke a mood that was, in fact, contrary to the brittle white
harshness of the shells? Practising this type of singular approach can help
us see, then better understand, the photographs we are looking to make.