This post was born from some discussions I’ve had with another photographer and some of my personal experiences in the past few weeks.

Here is a rhetorical question: do you think that when Dali sat down in front of his canvas he wondered if the masterpiece would look better in crayons?  I’m not even going to dignify it with a pause for your answer…  He was an artist with a vision and knew exactly how he would create his masterpiece.

The same goes (or should go) for photographer.  A photographer should know ahead of time how he/she wants to display the finished image.  It should not matter what others think might look better.  Unless of course they pay you enough to retire for that one print done their way while you hit your head against the wall for selling out.  But otherwise, it’s your artistic vision that dictates how you process, mat and frame your “masterpiece”.  And this is not a decision made during the post processing but from the beginning of the creative process of composing the scene.

My first introduction to photography was done on a 35mm Nikon camera loaded with Kodak B&W Tri-X film that I later got to develop and print in the darkroom.  So I might be a little sentimental and a little bias about B&W images.  But I feel that too many photographers treat it as just another option for an image ( click of a mouse button in photoshop) when it should be it’s own entity.

Now, actually getting to the point of knowing exactly how your finished product should look like from the start might take some time for some.  Sometimes it’s just not as clear cut as we all wish.  But than there are times when a photographer heads out to Arches and Canyonlands Natn’l Parks on a perfectly stormy January weekend.  Those cloudy desert days are not very common so it’s always a treat and I was in photo heaven.  Not only did I have some dramatic clouds during the “golden hour” but the sky was filled with the perfect, wispy clouds that kept me shooting all day.  And each time I stumbles on a composition there was never a question as to it’s future.  The urge to keep the beautiful red of the Entrada Formation against white snow in color was pretty strong but I knew there was only one way to treat it and that was black and white.

Here is one that might be my favorite from this weekend.

Ghost Outside The Window

When I saw the incredible texture of the dead log with melting snow around it and the sky full of those clouds I knew exactly what I had to do.

And here is another one of my favorites.

Heavens Through Double Arch

Fortunately, when I was capturing this image I was lucky enough to have a few brief moments of overcast as the sun hid behind one of the clouds.  This made it that much easier to expose the image properly and show the incredible detail of the rock, even at noon

Let me know what you think of the images and if you have a strong opinion on B&W versus color images.  I’m always up for a heated discussion and learning a few new things along the way.  And don’t despair, I did take a few sweet sunset shots that I intend to keep in color and show off that fantastic red of the Entrada Formation so stay tuned