The M Monochrome

Side of the Dumpster

My photography has taken a major turn back toward black and white. Like others of my generation, I started with film in the 1980’s, developing and printing in the darkroom of the lab where I did my PhD. At some point in the digital Photoshop-enabled era, my images became saturated color depictions of the suburban landscape. I’ve gone back to embrace my roots in formal, somewhat abstract black and white images. Still of course depicting light with the techniques I learned from Vincent Versace in his Welcome to Oz books.

While my earliest art photography influence was Ansel Adams, my earliest love of images was the macro photographs in My Weekly Reader. The transformation of objects by the process of photography has stuck with me. I’m now exploring just how far I can go with the idea.

Black and white photography provides maximum abstraction. I’d been meaning to shoot black and white film for a long time. I finally bought a tank and chemicals, loading the film at night in a closet with the room lights off. Once again I was greeted with the magic of light transformed to physical image. I’m trading off between film and digital, but mostly staying with a 50mm lens which I find helps isolate and abstract scenes.

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