I started out as a black and white photographer. Armed with a Pentax K-1000 from my News and Photo class, I set about taking images on Kodak Tri X Pan 400 film then processing and printing it in our school darkroom. I’ve been shooting in color since then, but I still see the world in black and white sometimes. I’ve been interested in it again, especially for landscapes, and a trip to a local farm provided the perfect opportunity.
Sally and I went to Butternut Farm in Farmington NH for a cider tasting in mid-May, before soccer and before all of our summer trips. I brought my camera intending to take some black and white landscape shots in the strengthening mid-morning sunlight, expecting to capture harsh shadows and textures on the fruit trees and wooden structures. We arrived to something different – overcast and foggy, lending an ethereal feel to the area. Not what I was expecting, but still perfect.
Usually I do all of my black and white conversion in software after the fact, but I decided to put my camera into a black and white profile so I could preview the results. An advantage of digital cameras is that I can see how my black and whites turn out right after I take them. An advantage of mirrorless digital cameras is that I can see the entire viewfinder in black and white before an image is taken. I spent the morning looking at things in black and white and it helped – it helped me pick up on tones, textures, perspectives, and compositions that worked well.
Fruit Trees
Butternut is a fruit farm. We go there every summer to pick blueberries, cherries, raspberries, and apples. It was early in the season and the deep rows of trees were still bare. They made for some great images with depth. There was a large tree shrouded in fog in the background that added some visual interest as well. I leaned towards a red toning on many of these images because I like the way it deepened the shadows.
Close Ups
I was shooting with a 28mm f/1.4 lens, which is a bit wasted on landscapes taken at f/8, so I had to do a few detail shots. A few of the trees had small flowers that made for nice images with water droplets on them. We also got a delicious brick oven pizza from one of the food trucks on site and it made a good subject.
Structures
I’ll close this out with a few images of structures. I find that wooden structures look particularly striking in black and white, especially when enough clarity is applied. Dark wood lends itself well to contrast and the texture of the grain really comes out. I processed the interior shot in two different ways, each providing their own mood to the disheveled space. That’s the farm shop, which wasn’t yet open, hence the mess.
I also enjoyed this lonely flight return window waiting for somebody to return their leftover cider tasting glasses.
The final image here of a car coming around in the fog reminds me of a painting I used to see at the “art store” in our local mall. It was a car driving toward the viewer in a foggy environment with barely anything but its headlights visible. In typical mall-art fashion it had LEDs poking through the headlights to make it more “real”.
Relatively Ambitious 