Enjoy winter's stark beauty in shades of gray

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The Siskiyous above Ashland seem to be erupting with plumes of clouds in this view taken last weekend as another winter storm made its way through the Rogue Valley. Contrasts like these are ideal for black-and-white photos. For a look at more black-and-white views of the Rogue Valley taken recently, go to www.mailtribune.com/gallerySteve Dieffenbacher

February 07, 2008

By Steve Dieffenbacher

It can be hard to appreciate the stark beauty of winter. Storms sweep in with whirling snow on howls of wind broken only by occasional days of frozen silence.

For many people, these gloomy weeks seem depressing and endless. But for anyone who loves taking black-and-white photographs, this winter has been a rare gift. Nature's elemental forces are revealed in a way they aren't during milder winters.

Anyone who's come of age in the digital world may not realize how recently color photography was invented. The film technology for modern films with colors close to what we see in nature didn't come until the invention of Kodachrome film in the mid-1930s, and it wasn't until the 1960s that color photos truly began to take precedence over black and white. Before the advent of software programs such as Photoshop to simplify and reduce costs of making separations, color photographs were uncommon in newspapers. Even today, because of limitations inherent in press configurations, many inside pages in the Mail Tribune remain dominated by black-and-white images.

Even though they linger strongly in the publishing industry, black-and-white photographs seem quaint and outdated to many people these days. But to a dedicated minority, they are an artistic choice that can help define the natural world more creatively.

Ever since my stepfather gave me an antiquated Exa 35mm camera and a book of Ansel Adams nature photographs in the 1960s, black-and-white photography has fascinated me. For seven years as a news photographer in Eastern Oregon during the 1970s, I shot mainly in black and white. Only after becoming a copy editor in the mid-1980s, when photography went from being my journalistic focus to a vacation hobby, did I begin to shoot mostly in color.

Last fall, during a trip to southeastern Oregon, inspired by the black-and-white photos of a friend of my son's and the discovery of a new film (see the accompanying box), I returned to black and white.

Like sketching in nature, about which I wrote last fall, black-and-white photography is a means of becoming attuned to the underlying patterns of the landscape.

Bereft of color, reduced to its basic structure of branches, rocks, clouds and water by the season, nature in black and white is a study in contrast, form and texture. Snow transfigures this spare world, creating striking patterns of light and shadow. Scenes that seem simply postcard beautiful in color become mysterious and haunting.

This is the time of year when Mother Nature is at her most dramatic. The sky is roiling and changeable. Clouds move in chaotic churns of wind, brightened by shafts of slanted sunlight.

Although contrast is the first principle of good black-and-white photos, form is a close second. Objects have to be seen not as familiar things — trees, rocks or clouds — but simply as shapes. That means developing an acute sense of values — realizing how the camera will convert tones the eye sees in color into shades of gray. A sky that looks dazzling in color may not be so in black and white. Even when storm clouds seem dramatically broken by pockets of blue, there may not be enough contrast or variation in values for a good picture. A dark blue is no different than a stormy dark gray in black and white. You must be sure there are bright highlights in the scene as well as deep blacks or your pictures will turn out muddy and dull. Fortunately, once there is contrast in a picture, form is almost always present as well, allowing you to concentrate on texture — the third key element of good black-and-white photos.

Once you learn how to look for it, you'll see texture everywhere — in patches of snow accented by grasses, in ripples on water that shift from dark to light, in dark bare tree limbs gesturing against a bright daytime sky.

With creative framing, you can turn your images into stunning abstractions. Get close, homing in on the texture of ice or striations of grasses amid the snow. Cut off the ground to focus on trees outlined against the sky. Pare out most of the horizon to get a dark band of foothills against a snowy far-off mountain range.

In the end, unearthing hidden aspects of the landscape through the camera by seeing it in shades of gray becomes second nature — another way of seeing. Often as I drive to work these wintry afternoons, columns of mist lift brightly off the mountains as the sun begins to set. For a moment I regret not having my camera, eager to capture the drama on film. But then the feeling passes. I remember that if I concentrate I can see nature's shades of gray as well as its colors without the camera. Somehow, those pictures preserved in my mind are often the best of all.

Steve Dieffenbacher is a Mail Tribune page designer/copy editor. You can reach him at 776-4498 or sdieffenbacher@mailtribune.com

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