The Fascinating Art Form Called Black and White

 Some years ago I discovered the black and white world of Ansel Adams and I have been fascinated by black and white photography ever since. He defined what a black and white photograph should be and refined his technique to such a degree, his iconic images still stand the test of time even today. A good many modern photographers mimic his style, myself included, simply because his images defined the genres. The nature and flavor of a well-made black and white image stands apart from all other forms of photographic art. I love black and white and will often go out of my way to shoot for black and white.

Ansel once said, 'You do not take a photograph. You make a photograph.' Those words are so true especially when it comes to black and white. I have several photographer friends who are excellent photographers but they tend to shy away from creating black and white images. They have their reasons for doing so and I certainly respect their ideas and their work. 

Black and white to me though is the ultimate when it comes to creative photography. It must stand on its own merits where color will often bolster or support a creative color image, black and white must prove itself through the use of composition, story, contrast, shape, form, and impact. 

Although my photography background began in black and white, I rarely shoot in-camera black and white anymore. Instead I will capture a color image that I intend to convert to black and white.

 Capturing an image that is suitable for that kind of conversion takes an ability to see beyond our visual range. We see the world in color and knowing what actually works as a black and white image based on the color image becomes the challenge for not all images translate well into black and white. I look for certain elements. Things like dark blue sky with lots of texture created by clouds, or soft and subtle light produced by fog or mist. Snow scenes work well in black and white. Even portraits can obtain a powerful impact when turned into a black and white. 

Ansel Adams spent countless hours refining his darkroom technique doing mechanically in the darkroom what we can do digitally on our computers. Even so, I approach the conversion process almost the same for each image varying only in degree and placement of technique. Once I convert the image, I'll look more closely and study what is there, then begin to refine the image by selectively adding a bit of brightness or contrast to a specific area. The idea is to create an illusion of depth by enhancing key elements that need a little more attention drawn to it. 

Ansel Adams did this mostly by dodging and burning allowing more light to burn in a spot or restricting the exposure in another. He took meticulous notes on how he created each image and stored those processing notes with the negatives. I mostly just wing it until I get the results I want.

 Sometimes I simply sit back and say, "Wow!" when I compare the final B&W image with the original color one. I know I have completed the black and white conversion process when the image perfectly illustrates the powerful emotion the moment of light triggered when I made the shot.

Shooting for black and white is a fascinating art form, one where the photographer artist shares more about what he felt than what he saw. Black and white brings out a different kind and different level of emotion than a color image. It is more provocative and impactful simply because it uses the blacks and it uses the whites in ways our eyes cannot see until the image itself in created. 

Close Encounters

 The two mile hike into the heart of the 38,000 acre Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Northern Oklahoma proved a more difficult hike than I anticipated. The weather had turned warm and breezy as it so often does across the Sooner state as time travels deeper into the summer months. The prairie, contrary to popular belief, is not flat or smooth. it can be quite rugged. This particular hike into a distant arroyo was characterised by uneven, undulating, ground covered with large jagged outcroppings and loose rocks that rolled under foot with almost every step. A twisted ankle or knee was a real possibility, not to mention a very good likelihood of encountering a rattlesnake or copperhead. As it turned out, running across a snake proved to be a non-issue. On the other hand, a couple hundred head of unseen wild American bison, or buffalo as most people call them, almost turned into a disaster.

The Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is one of if not my favorite location to explore. Explore is the operative word. Just driving through it doesn't do justice to the experience. You must move away from the dirt road and enter into its realm to experience it up close. Doing so opens up a world almost lost, a world where you are taken back to an ancient time. This particular day was not my first foray into this magical ocean of tall grasses. On previous hikes I had discovered a wonderful stoney arroyo that cut deep across the landscape almost splitting that section into two units. It proved to be a great location for photography.

I had pulled my Jeep off the dusty road and parked along a sort of wide spot that I supposed was considered to be a pullout. A couple hundred yards from there a shallow hill rolled to a smooth rounded top and just on the other side about half way down the slope was a rocky outcropping. From there the landscape angled down toward the distant arroyo. A good 45 minutes or so later found me angling across that stoney stretch and I worked my way deeper into the prairie and away from my point of entry.

I must have spent several hours hiking around in there and decided it was time to meander back toward my Jeep. My way out took a different route than my way in circling around that large shallow hill. Along the way I stepped into a dry creek bed that cut through the landscape. From the bottom of that creek bed I could not see very far over the edge and eventually determined I had traveled far enough to where I could now cut across and over to where I would intersect the road and then eventually back to my Jeep. When I approached the top edge of the creek bed, I noticed that a hundred or more bison had meandered in and effectively cut off my planned exit route. I stepped back into the creek bed and worked my way another hundred or so yards further down. Thinking I had moved far enough away from the herd, I stepped out of the creek bed and up into the edge of the prairie. This proved premature as I had miscalculated the size of the herd which spread across a larger area than I realized. When I stepped out, two very large, very mature, and very agitated bull bison stood about 50 yards or so from me. Behind them another hundred or so bison moved through the tall grass. My action startled the two bulls, and they broke into a dead run which triggered a stampede from the rest of the herd. Their first steps were directly toward me...and I had absolutely nowhere to hide. I was totally exposed. All I could have done was to have jumped back into the creek bed and curled up along the edge hoping they would move around me. As it turned out, before I made the jump, the herd turned away from me and ran off in another direction. The two bulls stopped about 75 yards out, turned, snorted and pawed the ground, displaying their disapproval of my presence within their domain.

Eventually, I made my way out and back to the Jeep, but not after my heart rate slowed to a more normal speed as the adrenalin slowly dissipated.

Close encounters with nature in the field can provide some exciting if not down right dangerous moments. A good many times over the years I have encountered unexpected circumstances most of them were rather harmless in nature, but a few proved to be something that offered a bit more of a challenge, like the time I was camping on the top of a ridge in Eastern Oklahoma along Flint Creek. It was the time I carelessly tossed a few fish bone scraps a few yards from where I had made my sleeping-under-the-stars camp. Later that night several skunks wandered in checking out the free fish bone meal scraps and two of them came within a foot or so from my head. Needless to say, I did not want to spook them and simply lay there hoping they would eventually move off. They did, but, that close encounter was one in which I dodged a rather pungent bullet.

Some of my close encounters were actually planned and hoped for. Just behind my home here in Kentucky are a good number of acres where wheat and corn are raised. The fields in the fall and winter attract a good number of deer. I'll often setup a makeshift ground blind in anticipation of capturing some interesting photographs of those deer. I've had many of them come within a few yards of me. Being that close to such an amazing wild animal and capturing them with my camera is truly a wonderful encounter.

I've had coyotes trot into my camp late in the night to begin to dig around and paw at the edge of my tent. I've actually slapped ones snout as he tried to jam it through side of the tent. Luckily he ran off.

Internet Photo

One of the more unusual close encounters happened when I was bow hunting for deer again back in Oklahoma on a very cold, single digit morning late in the deer season. I was about to freeze as I sat on top a small, hand built stand that leaned four feet or so off the ground, against a tree. It was still mostly dark, but I could barely see and hear squirrels moving around on the ground in the woods to my left. Being fully camouflaged with my face covered by a scarf, the only thing visible were my eyes. As I shivered in that morning cold air, I kept slowly turning my head left and right hoping to detect a deer nearby. As I twist my head back to the neutral position, through the darkness I saw two broad wings swooping silently through the air toward me. Barely three feet from my face, a giant owl, probably a Barred Owl, suddenly realized I was not something he could eat, and he swerved off to my left at the last second. It happened so fast I barely had time to react. I suppose, in the darkness and with me being full camouflaged, the owl could only see the white area around my eyes and face moving and he might have thought it was a squirrel working his way along a tree trunk.

Being out in nature can produce a lot of close encounters. Experiencing such things becomes part of the experience and collectively becomes part of your personal outdoor lore. I can't imagine an outdoor life without close encounters, well, things of that nature add a great deal of spice to life.

A Step Forward is a Footprint Left Behind: Top Five Pieces of Outdoor Gear Over 20 Years Old I Still Use

 The lake surface lay flat and calm, a spirit at peace with itself, as I glided my canoe through the predawn darkness. Overhead diamond-like remnants of stars still adorned the night sky casting just enough ambient light to make the outline of the surrounding woodland ridges stand silhouetted against the hushed glow emanating from the heavens. The first light of dawn still resided deep below the horizon with barely a hint of its approach and as I allowed the canoe to silently drift until it came to a complete stop, the only sounds were my soft breath and the occasional songbirds just then beginning to stir themselves awake. I remained motionless for several minutes and simply absorbed the moment.

 Spread before me the long, bow of my aging Old Town Camper Canoe remained silent and almost unseeable in the darkness. Ever so gently, I placed the length of my wooden paddle across the gunwales, yet in the quiet of that morning, that simple motion broke the silence with a distinctive, medium pitched thump that, in the stillness, sounded much louder than it actually was. Stretching far behind me and my vintage canoe lay well over 20 plus years of similar adventures. Although my intent that morning was to paddle forward, that moment alone echoed the thousands of adventurous footprints that followed behind me. With each step made through the years, a piece of nostalgic gear came along. I still use most of that old gear today.

A piece of outdoor gear becomes a part of a person's outdoor history. I can still pull out a tattered old shirt and instantly be transported back to a timeline of events when that piece of clothing served its purpose. The same thing applies to all of my gear from old fishing rods and reels, to canoe paddles, or an old pair of boots. An old rifle or shotgun will rekindle strong memories so much so, I can still feel the biting cold of a duck hunt, or the freezing winds whipping across the Oklahoma landscape as we tried to walk up a covey or two of quail. The aroma of the gun oil stimulates the best of memories when after a day of shooting I would sit on the floor to clean the firearm and my youngest son would bring his toy rifle over and sit next to me mimicking my cleaning actions. 

Clean out my tackle box and one of my favorite beaten and worn lures almost always generates the remark, "...caught a lot bass with this one..." There may not be another soul anywhere close enough to hear me say those words, but I would say them anyway, simply because I can hear them and relive those moments in doing so.

I possess so many pieces of old outgear, it is difficult to pick the top five. Even so, these five listed here have proven themselves to stand apart from all the rest for no other reason than I just continue to use them season after season.

The first one I have already mentioned; My Old Town Camper Canoe. It's use over the past 25 years or so, is anchored across a deep timeline where countless canoe outings using other canoes built a foundation upon which my vintage Old Town resides. That Camper was perhaps the best investment I've ever made for a piece of outdoor equipment. We have traveled hundreds if not thousands of miles together, caught numerous fish, and spent a great many evenings camping out under the stars along a creek bank or a gravel beach tucked back into some secluded corner of a local lake. Sometimes I just take it out, just me and the canoe. No fishing gear. No camping gear. No camera gear. Just the two of us and a paddle enjoying a day on the water.

I have always enjoyed the shooting sports going all the way back to my younger days carrying a BB-gun as a boy growing up in and around the woodlands and hills of Southeastern Oklahoma. So the second piece of favorite old outdoor gear is my trusty and beloved Western Field Single Shot 22 rifle. It is now over 60 years old, I having received it on my 13th birthday way back in 1965. It was sold by Montgomery Wards back then. I have shot tens of thousands of bullets through it and even today, it is still capable of grouping five shots inside a dime-sized circle at fifty yards. I said 'the rifle is capable of doing that', not so much the shooter anymore, although I will at times surprise myself and fire off one of those rare tight groupings.

Number three on the list may actually be a surprise. However, it has provided for me close to 35 years of near flawless service. It's actually almost 40 years old as I purchased it used when it was about 5 years old. It is one of my favorite pieces of outdoor equipment, my Bridgestone RB-2 Road Bike. Me and that bike have peddled thousands of miles together. In recent years I had almost given up on riding it as I was, as it turned out, hobbled with a severely clogged right side iliac artery leading into the right leg and hip area. My left side also showed signs of blood flow restriction. I recently had the condition repaired...you can read about it in the series 'The Challenge' I just finished. I love the classic looks and feel of that old bike. It's been a good one, one of the best equipment investments I've ever made.

Sometimes a piece of outdoor equipment can be so simple, it is easy to overlook its value to your outdoor experience. Number four on the list is one piece of equipment I have used since the early 1980's; my Coleman Peak-One Single Burner Packer Stove. It was perhaps one of the first pieces of real camping equipment I ever purchased that was not design to sleep on or inside of. This little stove has literally performed flawlessly across many camping outings which includes backpacking, canoe camping, and car camping. Everytime I dig it out, the memories of its first usage floods back into my thoughts. Appropriate use of terminology - floods - as I was on my first real backpacking adventure when I was overtaken by wooly-bugger thunderstorm that generated biblical quantities of rain. That little stove provided a warming and comforting source of heat as I cooked my evening meal from just outside my little tent while it rained. 

To pick the last piece of old gear that falls within the realm of my five favorites is difficult as there are several pieces I could easily interchange for the honor. Before I reveal number five, allow me to briefly list a few also-rans. Nbr1 - My JanSport backpack. Man-o-man the stories I could tell lugging that thing around. Nbr2 - My 10 inch cast-iron skillet. Oh it's heavy, but some of the most wonderful campfire meals have found their way out of that skillet. 

Nbr3 - My Mitchell 300 spin casting reel. How many bass have caught using that reel, I have no idea, but boy have I gain a lot of memories from doing so. Nbr4 - My Buck 110 Folding Knife. I purchased this knife back in 1973. Paid $20 for it and I still use it today. It still opens and locks as tight today as it did back then. Nbr5 - My Wenzel single man packer tent. It's light. It's simple. Its durable and it has tagged along with me through many backpacking adventures. Nbr6 - This is a tough one and this one could have easily been listed as one of the favorite five, but it is used for many other activities, not just as a piece of outdoor gear - My classic 1997 Jeep Wrangler. Nuff said here...it has truly been a classic.

Sorry - Only picture I Have of the Sleeping Bag

Okay...Number five on the list of favorite old pieces of outdoor gear is a classic. It has provided me a safe and comfortable abode for many years. My Coleman Peak-One Sleeping Bag. I purchased that sleeping bag back in the mid-1990's. It uses Qualo-fil fibers as insulation and was, when new, rated down to zero degrees fahrenheit. I have spent hundreds of hours sleeping in this bag over the years and rarely have I ever been cold even using it in single digit temperatures. Toss in a flannel liner and it becomes a comfy and warm wrap. I picked this item over the others simply because I have used it so much, continuously for over 35 years and it is still going strong.

Each of these items, including the also-ran's, carry with them countless stories of outdoor adventure. Today, the technology available for outdoor gear is almost overwhelming. I have taken time to look at some that technology thinking maybe it might be time to upgrade. Then I get to remembering all the wonderful adventures I've had with all those pieces of equipment, some listed here but also many others I failed to include. It is the stories, the memories associated with that old gear that is most important. The gear themselves were simply the tools I used to pursue a life-time of being outdoors. Shelving those old gear pieces, well...you know, I really don't think I could do such a thing. How do you shelve a classical piece of your life, and certainly not the memories attached to them.