Pattern and Texture in Nature through Black and White Photography

The art of black and white photography in effectively capturing texture and form in nature. Pawpaw plant in spring at Sugarcreek MetroPark. The digital conversion to black and white was completed using Nik Silver Efex Pro plug-in for Aperture. This is a powerful editing and enhancement tool that allows the photographer to make targeted adjustments - "control points" - within the image, very similar to the dodging and burning that was once completed by hand in the darkroom of years past.

I will be demonstrating, step-by-step, the in-camera capture techniques and the digital post-processing for optimal black and white nature photography during my upcoming workshop at The Inn at Cedar Falls in Hocking Hills, set for the weekend of September 24, 2010.


Emerging Pawpaw in black and white by Jim Crotty

More Beauty in Black and White

The art of black and white photography presented as my most recent monochrome conversions. These images were crafted through the use of Apple Aperture and the NIK Color Effects plug-in. Most of the originals were High Dynamic Range digital images. I find that the black and white conversions from HDR files achieve a tonal range not usually available from a single, digital image file.