Fine Art Black and White Photography

Black and White forms is the very foun­da­tion of the art of pho­tog­ra­phy and this advanced work­shop delves into this time­less genre. We have cre­at­ed this work­shop to show you every aspect in the art of mak­ing beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed mono­chrome images and prints.

Many pho­tog­ra­phers that have ven­tured out into the land­scape have at some time and tak­en a shot that they want­ed to turn into a black and white image. It is true to say that black and white pho­tog­ra­phy is the very foun­da­tion of pho­tog­ra­phy, and at some stage we have all seen the work of mas­ters like Ansel Adams, and the more con­tem­po­rary, Michael Ken­na. Black and white is often seen as an art form and reg­u­lar­ly referred to as time­less and we could not agree more. When we remove the colour from the pho­to­graph­ic equa­tion, we have far more free­dom of expres­sion and we can choose whether to make the image high key or dark and moody, almost regard­less of what the con­di­tions where when we were out there with our cam­eras. Black and white land­scape pho­tog­ra­phy is not as sim­ple as it may appear, and it is cer­tain­ly not a case of con­vert­ing a raw file into black and white at the begin­ning of the pro­cess­ing stages.

There are many things to con­sid­er through­out the jour­ney of black and white land­scape pho­tog­ra­phy and this mas­ter­class aims to cov­er as many of them as pos­si­ble. Begin­ning with field craft and ​‘pre-visu­al­i­sa­tion’, you will be shown the sub­jects that make per­fect black and white pho­tographs and the tech­niques in com­po­si­tion and cam­era tech­nique that give you the dig­i­tal files need­ed. We will help you under­stand how to ​‘see’ in black and white and try to under­stand, whilst still in the land­scape, what you may need to do when back at your com­put­er to bring your pre-visu­al­i­sa­tion to life.

We also believe that a raw cam­era file is only the begin­ning of the jour­ney of a black and white image, and for this rea­son we will ded­i­cate time to shar­ing the dif­fer­ent tech­niques on how to con­vert your image file to black and white, how to tease out the tones you want , and how to cre­ate that ​‘look’ that can eas­i­ly be lost whilst try­ing to process files. This is an in-depth sub­ject, but one that pre­vi­ous clients have found fas­ci­nat­ing which opened up a whole new direc­tion in their work.

This is a work­shop that will involve both time out in amaz­ing loca­tions hand picked by us and also time back at our base look­ing at what you have pho­tographed and mak­ing exhi­bi­tion qual­i­ty prints of your work. Each per­son on this work­shop will go home with a fin­ished print from their time with us! This is an advanced work­shop and for this rea­son the groups will be lim­it­ed to four pho­tog­ra­phers only so plen­ty of one to one time can be spent with every­body. If you want to learn from mas­ters in this field and learn every aspect in the clas­sic genre of black and white land­scape pho­tog­ra­phy, then this work­shop is for you.