The Kodak Library of Creative Photography. The Magic of Black-and-White

Time-Life Books, 1985. — 112 p. — (The Kodak Library of Creative Photography)The world around us is filled with rich and subtle colors that are a pleasure to the eye. Modern color films can record these hues with stunning immediacy. Why then should photographers bother to take pictures that record everything in shades of gray?There are many answers to this question. Sometimes the reason is a practical one: many professional photojournalists use back-and-white film simply because the newspapers they work for run only pictures printed in black ink on white paper. But for photographers who have the luxury of choice, the motives are more subtle. Some prefer black-and-white because it offers more control over the final image: they can print one negative in a thousand different ways. Others believe that Color can make a picture look brash and gaudy, or can distract from the urgency of social comment that a photograph can convey. Still others, such as the photographer who took the picture at right, love the purity of black-and-white, the way it reveals shapes, lines and tones that color can obscure.Despite this variety of motives, there is one underlying response that all black-and-white photographers share — an enjoyment of the sheer beauty of rich black and gray tones on white printing paper. The portfolio of pictures on the following nine pages celebrates this beauty and indicates the variety of imaginative approaches that black-and-white film can encompass.