I cannot deny being influenced by the great photographer Ansel Adams, his pictures aren't just iconic, they're the dictionary definition of what black and white landscape photography should look like, period.  His photographs of Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks, and Grand Teton National Park are wonderfully perfect.  They are so right in their composition that these places seem almost storybook-like to our twenty-first century digital eyes, yet this visualization of Nature in black & white can be accomplished in the computer darkroom now.  

     How we make black and white photographs in 2014 is nothing like the smell and stink of last century's pictures.  Chemicals like sodium sulfite, amidol, and potassium bromide drove my grandmother crazy, and my grandfather to eventually be forced to shut down his darkroom!  Even today the process can be complicated, but a lot less smelly for your significant other.  To be honest, my grandfather wouldn't have believed what today's digital photography equipment costs, yet most of us now have access to some of the junk I use to make the Wildlife Photographs on my website HogbatsPhotography.com.  

Wind River Canyon, WyomingA Black and White Landscape Photograph in Winter, of the Wind River Canyon, Wyoming.      Today's black and white landscape photo, of the Wind River Canyon, started out as a typical, if very cold, RAW digital file.  It was worked in Canon's Digital Photo Professional supplied software, till I had the photo looking closer to my visualization, then I worked it in their one button HDR till the colors were way over saturated; saving the file as a TIFF.  It was opened next in Lightroom 5 and worked in this software till I was satisfied with the high-contrast black and white image; then back to DPP to do a tone adjustment, so I could get the grey tones the way I saw it in my mind's eye.  

     And there you have it, frozen fingers and a couple of hours fussing over this black and white landscape photograph on my laptop.  Here's my Ansel Adams photograph of the Wind River Canyon, I hope you like it.  And until next week's blog, "Keep Your Camera Ready!"