Almost in Focus | Danny Gilleland |

I have two constants that have stayed with me through 35 years of photography.
A love for black and white and photographing in downtown Macon. Most of the time combining the two. The architecture, light and just the general ambiance seem to lend themselves to black and white.
Back in the old days of Tri-X and Nikon F's, I spent a lot of time walking downtown. I was downtown many mornings as the sun came up. We had an afternoon paper and I came in really early. Some days at lunch I would be walking again. If I needed a feature, I could always find something between Riverside Drive and Poplar Street.

We shot most of our pictures in black and white, not having color in the paper most days. I swear I saw the world in monochrome. One of my bosses early on gave me a wonderful bit of advice. Don't use a light meter, learn to read the light. Made me a lot more aware of how the light played on my subjects.

Doing only black and white also made me better at composition and finding that oh so elusive moment. A really good black and white photo has to be stronger than a good color photo because all it has going for it is composition, lighting and content. A color photo has color to give it a boost. When I look at photos now, I usually don't pay a lot of attention to the color. My wife tells me quite often that the way I match my clothes makes her wonder about my photography some time. Maybe I should dress in black and white?

Now days I shoot some black and white film, but mostly digital color. A lot of my personal pictures are black and white when I see them in my mind's eye. They live a very short life as color photos. So I thumb my nose at Paul Simon, because everything
does not look worse in black and white.

Give it a try, see monochrome.