Black & White Artistry: The Creative Photographer's Guide to Interpreting Places and Spaces

by Chuck Kimmerle (Photographer)

This book contains 60 lessons that will help readers to recognize the creative possibilities in every landscape, from capture through postproduction. The text is geared toward photographers who have a mastery of the basics of photography but want to hone their skills in the art of black & white landscape photography. Readers will learn how to evaluate landscapes to find the best candidates for strong black & white images. From there, Kimmerle presents numerous presentation options to consider—from capitalizing on a straight-forward capture, a presentation that speaks to the graphic elements that populate the scene, or a dreamier, more impressionistic rendering of the landscape. Readers will also investigate other options—from high and low key black & white presentations to dramatic perspectives—that will help them to take their black & white landscape work to a new level of technical and artistic expression.
Kimmerle believes that the production of rewarding black & white landscape images requires a two-part approach: (1) a technically sound capture of the right subject and (2) a careful consideration and application of appropriate postproduction enhancements, whether in Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom. Readers are presented with a host of “score-and-perfomance” image pairs; readers will learn why Kimmerle selected a particular scene as the subject of his image (What worked in the landscape? What qualities made it a good candidate for black & white? How did the lighting help ensure success?) and will then evaluate the qualities of the RAW image to study the ways in which it can be improved or enhanced to satisfy the artist’s vision.
A series of hands-on assignments allow readers to learn, first hand, how making some of the choices Kimmerle relies on in his own image-making process will impact their landscape captures and postproduction results.

Genres: Photography

128 pages, Paperback

First published December 8, 2015

Reviews

[Matthew Sarookanian · Rating 3 out of 5]

An insightful book to get your creative jucies flowing. I wished there was a more indepth talk about his techniques but as an opening to the world of black and white landscape, it got me looking at my surroundings in a new manner.

[Sasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It isn't like most out there. It is more so about why a photograph was taken and the vision behind it than the technical details of achieving it. He does go over the technical details of a few images but largely he explains his vision for an image or why he manipulated an image to show how he envisioned a scene. I also enjoyed that in his author's bio he states he doesn't apologize for centering his subject - he creates his art for him not the critics.

[JW · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice series of ideas without the detailed technical info. You're expected to understand how the camera works, this is from the POV of the artist using the tools provided. Excellent photography by Kimmerle which provided me with ideas for my own work.