Sun, Surf, Sand… in Black and White
I love black and white. If I had to choose which photographic medium to work with for the rest of my life, it would be black and white. Perhaps it is the democratization of what we see. No more seduction by mere color. With black and white, you have to compose, see, find the rhythms, and wait for that perfect moment.
You also have to be aware of luminances, tonality, shadow detail, highlight detail, and ways colors reproduce as black and white.
But that is part of the fun of it for me.
Brief history… I started as a black and white “art” photographer, switched over to mostly color when I opened a commercial studio. When that studio turned into an ad agency, I started shooting more personal work in black and white again.
When I started this business, color in publications was a luxury. We didn’t choose black and white simply because we had the choice. Often it was because the brochure, magazine, trade publication, or ad was simply cheaper to produce in black and white. No color seps, no color proofs.
Digital is designed for color. Color is its natural space. We have to process color files to get to black and white.
Deliberate. When we have a black and white image from a digital camera we have made a deliberate, not a financial, reason to do so.
I often choose monochrome because it speaks a different dialect than color does. Gone are the affectations of colors, the sparkle of color. And what we are left with is the essence of the thing.
(Of course, I shoot color. A lot of color. This is a discussion on why I sometimes choose monochrome instead.)
My wife and I spent a week on the California coast a few weeks ago. Our favorite beach area is Carpinteria. A small town just south of Santa Barbara. Great food, simple lifestyle, incredible weather, and a stunning sandy beach.
One of my favorite things to do is to walk along the shoreline with my camera and look for designs in the surf, the reflections of the sun on wet sand, and the shells and rocks that see, to undulate just below the surface of the fast-moving water.
We had two days of clouds and rain and four of sunshine. It’s a whole different world in the rain and we spent a lot of time shooting the misty mountains and wet foliage around town. Gorgeous.
But on our first sunny day, we hit the beach, cameras in hand (well, pockets anyway).
For this trip, I decided to leave my big kit back home and brought two point and shoot cameras with me. My iPhone Max S and a Lumix DC SZ70. I love both of those little cameras.
All of the photographs on this page were shot with the iPhone.
The sun was incredibly bright that first morning after the rain. It was so clear that we could see the Channel Islands out in the Pacific as clear as you could imagine. That’s rare.
I was stalking the light on the sand. As the waves would wash ashore they would bring small — and large — rocks with them. As the rocks would sit in the sand, the rushing water of the retreating waves would carve the sand around them into incredibly interesting shapes and textures.
I remembered some of the work of Edward Weston and his work with sand and rock shapes. As I stood there looking out at the sea, I glanced down to see perfectly sculpted sand around a small, black rock.
The sun was creating a giant reflection on the wet sand and the contrast of the shot was simply off the charts.
And that is OK with me. I love contrasty films. I always pushed my TriX and TMax 400. I bought thousands of rolls of TMax 3200 and pushed them to deep blacks and brilliant, contrasty highlights.
The sand looked like semi-liquid silver and the rocks were either a highlight or a deep shadow. CONTRAST! I pulled out the iPhone and began to shoot as I walked along the shore.
I was so fascinated by what was in front of me that I got my shoes wet… the ones I didn’t want to get wet and left the flip-flops in the backpack. I get that way when I am shooting. All I care about is what is in front of the lens.
I probably made a couple of dozen images that morning. All of them were processed on the phone with Carbon.
When I got home I double-checked them in NIK Silver Effects but was actually super happy with the Carbon processing and the look of the images.
The highlights are shimmery and the shadows deep. Really deep. T-Max 3200 pushed to 6400 and processed at normal plus two for contrast you can sand a bumper with deep.
We are already planning another trip to that coastal area and this time I will bring a few more cameras with me. And probably that will include the Hasselblad with a few rolls of TriX.
But will the conditions be the same then?
Maybe. Maybe not.
But there is always a photograph to be taken if you remain still, and try to get in tune with your world all around. The photos are there — we just have to let ourselves see them.
Thanks for reading.
You can find me on my personal website, www.dongiannatti.com, and my online teaching course at www.project52prosystem.com. And of course, walking along the surf or riding my motorcycle in the deserts of Arizona.
