Understanding the joy of black-and-white photography

I started by life-long love with photography using a well-worn Pentax SP1000, an earlier incarnation of the very popular K1000, with an Asahi 50mm f/1.8 lens. Before that I did briefly use a Rolleiflex TLR (medium format twin lens reflex) camera but it was that 35mm SLR that was my real start into my journey into photography. While Kodak Plus-X and Tri-X were my "bread and butter" film stock because of their low cost, ability to roll my own cassettes and process the same I also used Ektachrome, Kodachrome and occasionally infrared. While Ektachrome was always a solid film that almost always captured a solid image and I loved the warmth of Kodachrome K-14 I was enthralled with the magic of Kodak HIE (High-Speed Infrared). Yes, it was very slow at ISO 50 or 100 and yes, it was very difficult to work with and yes, it was magic because it captured what the human eye couldn't see. Its images transported me away from the island in which I lived and incorrectly felt trapped.

Lo and behold how the times have changed. Fast forward to today where I use a rather well-worn Fujifilm X100T as my "daily driver" which now a few years old I have no plans of upgrading until it "gives up the ghost." Where in the past I was limited to ISO 125 for a quality image, ISO 400 for one with noticeable film grain and ISO 1600 for an image resembling a Rorschach test with film grain so large you could point each grain out now I rarely shoot below ISO 800. Monochrome at ISO 6400 now looks finer than Kodak Plus-X at ISO 125. While digital cameras of today are technical marvels shooting with an infrared filter still takes time which reminds me of my humble beginnings and a simpler world.

The image above was captured near my old home, an area bordering the city on one side and the site of a long forgotten New England cider mill on the other. I purchased my first home one street over and when my second home came available I bought it for the asking price which was during the 2008 financial meltdown when home prices were quickly dropping. While it was a "cookie cutter" and cheaply spec'd as possible home it was even closer to the forest I loved which made the much too high price worth it.

A bit of backstory. I grew up on Cape Cod also near a small forest long before the building boom of the 1980s when large areas were still undeveloped and I could aimlessly wander and capture an image of what is now a much simpler world. Being alone in a forest or near the water has always been a place of solitude and in that solitude I always found joy. Where most folks today can't imagine not having a smartphone with them I was always completely away from modern technology. Except for the light meter in my SP1000 everything including me was purely analog. On the rare occasions that I could afford a roll of infrared film I'd carefully think out what and where I wanted to capture my images. Then after that planning I'd head into the woods, setup my tripod and with my external light meter carefully time each exposure. Measure the exposure time, take the image, move my camera and tripod to a new location and repeat 36 times. Afterwards I'd process my film in my home darkroom and print a contact sheet to reveal a world I knew quite well in a view I'd rarely had the chance to see.

Now the process is much different but still familiar. I'd take a short walk to the pond above, set up my tripod, camera with a 720nm infrared filter and attach a cable shutter release. With the same care I used in my youth I'd carefully time each shot and repeat as many times as desired. While much more digital than the past I was always without a phone and for those brief moments returned to the joy I felt before in my similar youth.

For years I was stuck with a quandary: in this world where almost every camera comes with a color array what do black-and-white images mean? Looking around most of what I see are images that weren't acceptable in color so the photographer slapped on a black-and-white filter and called it a day. This, of course, was unacceptable as black-and-white photography was something special to me. But why? It wasn't until I looked into my early days as a photographer did I find the answer: because it removed the viewer from their current time and place and gave them the thought of simpler times gone by with black-and-white infrared photography only enhancing that feeling. We see in color but we dream in black-and-white. Good black-and-white photography is like bird's eye chillies in a bowl of bún bò Huế: a little in the right amount or in the case of photography the right context is perfect and too much in the wrong amount or context is inedible.

I'd like to suggest you try black-and-white infrared photography for yourself. Pick-up a cheap tripod and bargain 720nm infrared filter and go explore around your part of the world. While you will still be using a modern digital camera you will for a moment be transported back to an earlier world of photography and its more primitive process of crafting an image. You will also be able to see the world in a very different way. This I promise will make you a better and more mindful photographer.

Image: Parson's Hill Pond in monochrome with 720nm infrared filter at ISO 800 SOOC (straight out of the camera). Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. Fujifilm X100T. image: ©Brian Beeler 2014