Black and White Photography Field Guide

INTRODUCTION

Black-and-white photography occupies a unique place in the world of art and imaging, all the more surprising because within the world of photography it is taken so much for granted. What I will attempt in this book is to jolt black and white out of its normally complacent position, and in this I’m helped by the completely changed circumstances of digital photography.

Why complacent? Because black and white has become so established as the senior tradition of photography over the course of more than a century that its reasons for being are only rarely questioned.

For many people, perhaps most, black-and-white photography just “is.” ...