"Color catches the human eye, but black and white peers into your soul." - Lawrence M. Sawyer.
I feel strongly that black and white photography gives us a way to look at the world and add our own interpretation, without fighting mentally with the way the colors look, or the barrage of fake colors that we see so often today. The scenes you see in this gallery are from all over the USA and the world. Some scenes look good in color, or black and white; other scenes beg to be printed just in black and white. I take great pride in my ability to create visually pleasing black and white prints.
Ansel Adams once said, "The negative is the score; the print is the performance." To make a visually arresting black and white print, you have to start with a good capture (or negative...or today, nearly always a digital file.) To believe that digital photography makes everything easy is, perhaps, naive. One has to understand the relationship between black, white and gray, and you must also have an intuitive feel for luminosity; which areas make the most sense to the human eye as black, or white, or some shade of gray? And which shade of gray? It's all a matter of skillful interpretation.
A correctly made black and white print will have detail in the highlight areas. The human mind wants to see this detail; without it, we rack our brain wondering what was there. It is far more psychologically comforting to view a print that provides detail in the bright areas, so that we can make sense of the scene. Without that detail, something would be missing.
Likewise, we want to also see just a tiny bit of detail in the shadow areas, to "know" what is there.
I hope you find something here that triggers a beautiful memory, or reminds you of a wonderful time in your life, or a visit to a place that you experienced. And, I hope my interpretation of these scenes without color helps you see forms and light and comforting compositions, releasing you from the "need" for color and taking you into the marvelous world of black and white photography.
All images can be purchased securely on the web site, but if you see an image that you like but the print size (or type) is not shown, please email me. I want to make sure that everyone who loves my work can find a way to hang it on their wall.
