steve mulligan and john benham's black and white worlds

there is something indescribably romantic about black and white images. this somewhat blurry, slightly overexposed image of a train on the isle of wight is a perfect example. it is primarily for that reason that i have always loved black and white photography.

in my own experience it is much more challenging and usually more interesting to produce a really good black and white image. aside from its aesthetic attraction there are the technical considerations of texture, lighting, composition, subject and so on that i know are also omnipresent in colour photography but they seem to be more pertinent in the construction of a good black and white image.

a couple of contemporary photographers whose black and white work i have admired for some time now are steve mulligan, who specializes in large format landscapes and john benham who takes images ranging from the stellar (literally of stars) to images from his travels. in my view john’s strongest work is in his black and white pictures where he places the extraordinary range of contrast inherent in the grey scale squarely in the mix of a series of powerful images.

steve mulligan’s work is spread over seven galleries, each focussing on a geographic region or in one instance where there is “evidence of man”.

here are two of steve’s black and white images: delta pool . . . ice pool . . .
here are two of john’s images: snowdunes . . . miner's cabin . . .

if you would like to view more beautiful photography then john benham’s site includes a wide-range of subjects. you should allow for plenty of time to wander around and appreciate his fine work .