Seeing Nature Through a Lens

(my photo of Half Dome, taken from across Tenaya Canyon)

Early one morning I followed the Merced River in Yosemite from Happy Isles to the big medial moraine, turned right, and headed up Tenaya Canyon. At the far end of Mirror Meadow I sat on a log by Tenaya Creek. Half Dome began on the other side of the river and rose a mile over my head. My intention was to sit by the quiet river, focus on the triangular boulder in the middle of the river with its image reflecting off the still surface of the water, let thoughts come and go, and calm into the mindfulness of nature. When the light in the sky was in the right place, I would take black and white photos of Half Dome backlit by the sun.

When I first began taking black and whites, I quickly learned that the “form” of colors, what gives colors their colors, does not translate to b/w film. Black and white picks up contrasts. What gives colors their power is reduced to rather indiscriminate shades of gray. I had to train my eyes to see the natural world differently. 

Whenever I arrive in nature, it takes my city eyes time to refocus and see nature on its terms instead of in the context of a built landscape of right angles.

Ansel Adams was convinced that a black and white photo was different than a color photo of the same scene, a difference that went beyond the colors, and for years he refused to deal with color. Perhaps he felt it was too easy to be swayed by the colors in a setting. Psychologists tell us that if a scene is green, we become peaceful. If it’s red, we get excited. Colors affect us emotionally.

The colors of Yosemite are amazing, especially at dawn and sunset – deep azure skies, granite cliffs that shift from blazing white to golden to the alpen glow hues of the sunset, and meadows that are vibrant green in spring, and rust and tan in the fall with accents of purple.

And if we’re serious about photography, whether we’re using color or b/w film, we want to compose each photo so that it tells a story.

To me, black and white photos capture the details, the grain, the textures of the land, rather than the colors shimmering on the surface. 

If you have had the chance to see two photographs of a friend’s face, one in color and the other in black and white, you know it’s like looking at two different people. In the black and white photo it’s as if a protective covering has been removed. We notice the wrinkles and blemishes, and in the eyes we see the struggles he or she has endured. In black and white, the personalities of people are revealed.

Questions to toss around at your next party:

If there is more emotion to color photos, is there more philosophy to black and whites? Which one has more drama?

If writing and reading are essentially black and white affairs (black ink, white paper), do avid readers see black and white photography better than non-readers? How are digital books with colors and photographs changing this?

French cartoonist Heuet has created a graphic novel version of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. Does a graphics version of a story tell the story better, or does it tell a different story?