Black And White Prints

What makes black and whiter photography so flexible is that much control is possible at every stage of the process from unexposed film to finished print. It is also possible to make black and whiter transparencies quite easily-ether by using special black and white reversal film, or by contact printing monochrome negatives to produce a positive image. Ansel Adams, the famous American landscape photographer, has said that black and whiter negative is a bit like a musical score-it can be 'interpreted' in so many different ways. All photographs fade eventually, but black and white pictures can be made what is known as archivally permanent, and given a very long like, by special treatment. For that reason, museums and private collections of art photography tend to favour the monochrome print. Black and whiter photographs are very much easier to retouch, or 'spot', than color pictures. You can remove blemishes, even wrinkles under someone's eyes, by using a very sharp blade to scrape them away, and you can obliterate little specks by scraping away any dark ones and painting over light ones with a very fine paintbrush.