1810_2365 Badlands
Starting a new set today: black and white landscapes from the badlands of Alberta. On my most recent trip to this location - which I have visited many times since 1988 - I realized by Day 2 that I was seeing the landforms in black and white. From that point on, I shot with monochrome in mind - although, by shooting RAW, I did retain all the colour information: a sort of fail safe, because sometimes I'm wrong.
This time, however, my instincts were on the mark. The black and white versions are much more interesting than the colour. There really wasn't a lot of colour there, aside from blue skies and the earthy hues of brown, yellow, and rusty red. Colour, of course, is a crowd pleaser. The eye delights in colour. I'm no different. Colour triggers an emotional response: red is exciting, like fire and blood and birth and death; blue is cool and calming; green reminds us of the natural world; yellow stimulates the intellect; black is mysterious and dramatic - and so on.
Take that away, and you'd better know how to put an image together. You have lines, shapes, textures. I cut my teeth on black and white, which was cheaper way back in my early days (shooting film in the 1960s). It provided me with a grounding in visual literacy that probably has helped my colour photography, too.
Photographed in Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2018 James R. Page - all rights reserved.
1810_2365 Badlands
Starting a new set today: black and white landscapes from the badlands of Alberta. On my most recent trip to this location - which I have visited many times since 1988 - I realized by Day 2 that I was seeing the landforms in black and white. From that point on, I shot with monochrome in mind - although, by shooting RAW, I did retain all the colour information: a sort of fail safe, because sometimes I'm wrong.
This time, however, my instincts were on the mark. The black and white versions are much more interesting than the colour. There really wasn't a lot of colour there, aside from blue skies and the earthy hues of brown, yellow, and rusty red. Colour, of course, is a crowd pleaser. The eye delights in colour. I'm no different. Colour triggers an emotional response: red is exciting, like fire and blood and birth and death; blue is cool and calming; green reminds us of the natural world; yellow stimulates the intellect; black is mysterious and dramatic - and so on.
Take that away, and you'd better know how to put an image together. You have lines, shapes, textures. I cut my teeth on black and white, which was cheaper way back in my early days (shooting film in the 1960s). It provided me with a grounding in visual literacy that probably has helped my colour photography, too.
Photographed in Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission ©2018 James R. Page - all rights reserved.