Is Black and White Photography Dead?

No, It’s Alive and Well

Black and White photography is alive and well. And there are reasons why would an artist would choose black and white (monochrome) photography over color. In the days of film only, black and white could be processed faster, printed faster and reproduced easier than color images. In today’s world none of that makes any difference. Today’s color printing is as easy as hitting the print command on your computer. 

Why Shoot Balck and White?

So why black and white? First of all, the black and white image immediately becomes more abstract. Lines, shapes and tone dominate the image instead of the bright colors that tend to attract the eye in a color photo. Secondly and most importantly, you can “push” the manipulations of the black and white tonal range much further than you can stretch the color. The monochrome image may get more abstract or moody by becoming darker, lighter, or more tonally compressed, but never unrealistic, garish and harsh as a color image gets when it is digitally over-processed. Finally, by producing black and white images, the artist is following in the footsteps of some of the greatest photographic masters - Adams, Weston and Penn just to name a (very) few.

The Tools of the Digital Darkroom

The tools provided by Photoshop are in many cases the same as you would use in the traditional darkroom. Burning, dodging, flashing and contrast control are just a few of the basic manipulations available. Photoshop also has advanced controls such as curves, layers, masking and levels that were either extremely difficult or outright impossible to use in the traditional darkroom. Black and white photography is alive and well and with today’s digital darkroom the monochromatic image is more powerful than ever.

Contact John Craig

On Becoming An Artist

When I arrived in Las Cruces 15 months ago, I partnered with the Southwest Environmental Center to produced two photographic exhibitions of other artists works. That was the plan, to create an environment for photographers to exhibit. While producing these exhibits, I did not include any of my own work. In fact, over recent years I have not exhibited often or widely. 

But that has begun to change. Currently, I am exhibiting my work in the exhibit FIRE & ICE at the Unsettled Gallery here in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The gallery is small, but a really charming place to exhibit with its whitewashed adobe walls and wooden vigas across the ceiling. I got the opportunity to pitch an idea to have my photographs of Death Valley (FIRE) and my friend Alex Tullis’s work of Iceland (ICE) shown In the gallery. Each of us has one of the two major rooms in the gallery. Together the exhibit is a contrast in landscapes, colors, themes and styles.

I was recently pleased to hear that I have been awarded a solo exhibition in another gallery here in Las Cruces. The work is more current than the Death Valley work, and I believe a next creative step compared to the current show, FIRE & ICE.

So now I have to confront how I am going to present myself as an artist. How do I market my work, how do I find a wider audience for the work I do. There are a number of ways to go; I know many photographers that go to local fairs every week and they do O.K. I know some photographers are in galleries, but they only sell occasionally. And we have all heard of people in New York, L.A., or Santa Fe that have sold prints for thousands of dollars. I have a e-commerce web site, so with a lot of marketing online sales is a possibility. There isn’t one answer that fits all that I want to accomplish.

Since my latest series has not yet been shown, in fact not even completed, I have to make a decision on how I will proceed to present, market, and show my work. This requires a road map, a plan to get from where I am now to where I want to be a year or two down the road. 

So right now I am beginning to lean in one direction and with a little more consideration over the next few weeks, I will make the final decision and tell you why I chose that direction. 

Stay tuned!

My New Photo Lab

How do I go about finding a photo lab, I’ve lost the one I had. From that lab I could often get exhibition prints within a day. Recently they consolidated their facilities in other states and now they are not able to deliver prints for 7-10 days - if I’m lucky. With several upcoming exhibitions I needed to find a reliable, high quality, affordable lab to get large archival pigment prints in a reasonable time frame.

While doing an internet search I came across Nations Photo Lab, located in Hunt Valley, Maryland. As a test, I ordered three prints. Since I am living in Las Cruces, New Mexico, I was a bit concerned about their ability to get the images printed and sent back to me quickly. 

I am happy (very happy) to report that my test went well. I uploaded three 16” x 20” inch images on Sunday afternoon and on Wednesday they began their almost 2000 mile trip across the country. I received them on Saturday afternoon in a flat, well protected box. 

Excitedly I opened the flat box and found the prints were protected against dents and dings by sandwiching them between two more layers of corrugated cardboard. Inside these layers of cardboard was a clear envelope containing the photographs. When I opened the envelope and spread the photographs out, I was floored!

They were BEAUTIFUL!

Nations Photo Lab only prints from digital files, they do not print from, or process negatives. They have a variety of sizes at reasonable cost, and as I indicated before, they have quick turnaround. 

I was so impressed by the quality, response, and price that I immediately uploaded 15 more images to print for my next exhibition in April of 2020. 

I am looking forward to getting these images back next week.

Nations Photo Lab
1130 Pepper Road
Hunt Valley , MD 21031

www.nationalphotolab.com

PH: 888-507-5755

FIRE & ICE Exhibition

Converge Las Cruces Presents FIRE & ICE

A Photographic Exhibition At The Unsettled Gallery

Converge Las Cruces presents FIRE & ICE, a photographic exhibition at The Unsettled Gallery located at 905 North Mesquite Street in Las Cruces, New Mexico, taking place January 11, 2020 through, February 29, 2020.

The exhibit is the work of two photographers; John Craig who examines the timeless landscape of Death Valley, and Alex Tullis who explores the magical landscape of Iceland. 

“The work in this exhibition has opposite connotations yet illuminate a single motif of the land around us; both artists interpreting the uninhabitable,” according to Deborah Sperry, Director of Exhibitions at Converge Las Cruces.  “Craig’s photographs of Death Valley are imbedded with eternal gyrostatic tensions with the passage of time while Tullis’s compositions of the Icelandic landscape highlight the intimacy of remoteness.”

An artists reception will be held January 11, 20120 from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m at The Unsettled Gallery, located at 905 North Mesquite Street, Las Cruces, N.M.

Mr. Craig has been a professional photographer for more than forty years and has a Bachelors of Art Degree from New Jersey City University in Jersey City, New Jersey. He lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico with his wife Deborah and their two dogs, Jasper Johns and Coco.

Mr. Tullis is a professional photographer currently working for the YNAP Group. He has a Bachelors of Art Degree from New Jersey City University in Jersey City, New Jersey. His experience includes fine art, wedding, commercial and editorial photography. He lives in Blairstown, New Jersey with his wife Julia and their two young, beautiful children.

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Converge Las Cruces exhibits in partnership with The Unsettled Gallery in Las Cruces, New Mexico. We exhibit and represent artists that focus on environment, landscape, and climate change. The mission of the gallery is to converge cutting edge artworks of today’s critical issues with an up-and-coming art market.

The Unsettled Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

FIRE & ICE Artist Talk - February 22

This image, Death Valley 9210 is on view at the Unsettled Gallery located at 905 North Mesquite Street Las Cruces New Mexico at part of the Fire and Ice Exhibit.

This image was taken at Zabriski Point in Death Valley and was one of the first images I took using intentional camera movement. You can hear the story on how and why I started this form of photography by attending my artist talk on February 8, 2020 at 1:30 p.m.

Photographing From the Levee in Las Cruces, New Mexico

It was a chilly day of about 50 degrees with a breeze that made it feel colder. When you look behind me, you see the Organ Mountains to the east, and the city of Las Cruces to the west.

Finally at the end we take a look at what I captured on this day.

Thanks for watching.

55 Years of Running

I have been running for 55 years, it all started on a bet…

The Monster In My Closet

A number of years ago, just before lunch, I was asked by a co-worker about a dream he had the night before. Since I had been reading a lot of Carl Jung (Man and His Symbols, Modern Man in Search of a Soul), he felt that maybe I could shed some light on his dream.

He dreamt he was sitting in his living room, calmly reading a newspaper while his wife and daughters were screaming and running around in a panic because the upstairs of their house was on fire. I had read where there have been cases where dreams seem to predict a physical problem before one becomes consciously aware of it. Since I don’t have a degree in psychology, nor do I even play a psychiatrist on television, I just asked my co-worker; do you feel O.K.? He looked at me  and said “Yeah.” I then left for lunch and came back an hour later.

A few minutes before I returned to my job my co-worker had rushed out of work with a fever of 102 degrees. Perhaps at some cellular level his dream seem to anticipate his house (head) fire.

It was then I realize that I might want to pay a little more attention to what some of my dreams may have been telling me. Most were run-of-the-mill anxiety, nonsense, crazy stuff. But one dream shook me to my core. I dreamt a dark, nefarious figure jumped out of my closet and ran up to my bed. I woke up in a cold sweat and it took some time for me to settle down and get back to sleep. This shadowy figure probably represented all of my fears, faults and bad personality traits, and my mind decided it was time to confront me. I don’t know if having that dream was the culmination of looking inward, or if it was an acknowledgment of my desire to willingly take on my issues, but I knew the next morning I needed to make a photographic record of my experience.

Today, when I look at The Monster in My Closet, it is almost as frighting as when I lived through it. I have never had a dream like that again, maybe because of personal growth and maturity (although many I know might question that maturity part). My belief is that if some night a similar specter were to appear, I would be up to the task of facing the darker truths that are pressing upward from my unconscious.

About the Photo:
The Monster in My Closet (1988)
Camera – Mamiya 645
Exposure – 30 seconds
Film – Kodak T-Max 400
Developer – HC-110
Paper – Kodak Elite

Death Valley – Forbidden, Unforgiving, and Timeless

Death Valley can be a forbidden and unforgiving landscape, yet the intense heat and the desert dryness makes it a place of endless photographic opportunities.

When my wife and I first drove into Death Valley we passed by Zabriskie Point. There were about two hundred people on the point overlook, all taking pretty much the same photo. That afternoon we drove all around the park, I hardly took my camera out as we drove through the different landscapes of desert, mountains and sand dunes.

The next morning we got up before dawn and drove back to Zabriskie point. We arrived before the first light and there was almost no one else present. After a few minutes some people started to arrive, then more and more, and then as the light came up from the mountains behind us, there were suddenly scores of tourists.

Again I noticed everyone was taking the same picture, and it was pretty much the same photo you can find on their Instagram and Facebook feeds within minutes of visiting the site. So I decided to do something different, something that was out of my comfort zone. I decided that while the light levels were still low, I would take my photos with a slow shutter speed while I move the camera. Most of my images in Death Valley were done that way for the three days we we visited.

The long exposures gave me an opportunity to capture the soft light and rich colors. I chose not to capture an appearance, but rather invoke the sensations of my surroundings. I did not want to freeze a particular moment, but instead explore the timeless landscape. My goal was not to seize memories, but to arrive at a wider experienced. These photographs explore the juncture between earth, sky, time, and the infinite. They challenge perceptions, while still inviting us into a forbidden and unforgiving landscape.

A New Chapter

Late last summer I began photographing “Drive-by Memories,” a series of black and white photos that included memories and perceptions from my past. I went to back the places I lived and loved and tried to collect a fleeting remembrance. I felt I needed to do this project to photographically finish this chapter in my life.

Now I am about to start a new chapter. At the beginning of October 2018, my wife and I will be moving to our new home in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Located in the southern tip of Interstate 25, about 40 miles north of El Paso, Texas, Las Cruces is a city of just over 100,000 people. The Organ Mountains are only a few miles from my front door, and White Sands National Monument about an hour away. It’s hot in the summer, mild in the winter and it provides endless opportunities for photography, art and beauty.

My wife was asked by a friend, “why are you moving there?” Her one word answer was “beauty.”  And at this stage of our life we think beauty is something to behold, consider and contemplate, especially as the stubborn march of time becomes a determinant for of all life’s pursuits.