black and white photos

Find A Wholesale Supplier For Any Product You Want In Just A Few Minutes…And Pay Up To 80% Below Wholesale Prices! Click Here Now

black and white photos granted that

01/25/2007

I just finished commenting on the black and white photos of Ansel Adams, but don’t believe I got anywhere near close to describing in verbal language the language of the genius of the language that is black and white photos. (See what I mean? Even that sentence is hard to follow.) With Adams’s work, there is such a definitive eye involved, such a gift for capturing or encapsulating wind on water or ice and snow or two kinds of rock in contrast that I—far from being an art scholar—fall short of translating. The same goes for many fantastic artists who have “created” the black and white photos in a time when photo manipulation was not an option. No MS Paint programs or Adobe Photoshop tools were extant, and cameras were not high tech or instant.

Many different sources were used for this article. I hope you find it both interesting and helpful.

I speak to the likes of the black and white photos of Ansel Adams, of course, but also to those of other photographic geniuses over time. For example, consider the stunning eye of the controversial Robert Mappelthorpe. Bodies are more than vessels of life, lines are living, structure is studied. The nude black man is edible rock muscle and tone luring the viewer to reconsider the person he or she has slept next to for the last forty years afterward.

The same human body takes archetypal shape in the black and white photos of Herb Ritts. His sweaty, greasy mechanics wearing dog tags of war face the camera with the faces of boys displaced. His landscapes are melded with the ballet of bodies on beaches. His depictions of distortions are more real than surreal and yet strangely comforting and discomforting at once following this.

And the distortions and damages as realistic black and white photos meet with the eye of the brilliant Annie Leibovitz. In one work, Leibovitz depicts the fallout of abuse, her camera picking up the crust of old blood; in another, pompous rockers pose with puffed out chests and seasoned eyes, while boyhood purity shows as residual vulnerability in the turn of a neck, in the wisp of a half-closed eye when all is said and done.

If I had to choose, though, the most striking of all black and white photos is one done of Nicolas Cage. Let me preface the vote with the information that will disclose my bias: I have almost every picture of Nicolas Cage, cut from magazines, included in books on the superstar, or featured on movie marquee posters. But this photo is a close-up—I mean a CLOSE-up. Done by Anton Corbijn (I THINK—if not, I truly apologize), this photo of Nic, in a contemplative mood of sorts, is so close up that one can count the eyelashes, one can determine the pores of Nic’s skin. It is rugged and rough; it is precious flesh and palatable portrayal. It is the best of the best of black and white photos ordinarily that would be my conclusion, too, but.

Related to this post:
black and white photos consequently