This goes back to my First Year Studies in Photography my first year at Sarah Lawrence. This was the class that acclimated all students to the Sarah Lawrence style of education as it were. I was lucky, and managed to land in the much coveted Photography one. This was basic photography, introduction to as it were, and dealt with black and white only. It covered basics on how to use the camera, how to “take” pictures, and how to develop your own prints.

There was a discussion once, I forget whether in class or just between me and the professor, about the limitations and subtleties of black and white photography. He said that since we don’t have the full range of colors to work with when putting together a shot, what’s really important then is to focus on the difference between textures and the tones. The textures were obvious, and since we were developing our own prints we could enhance them and their contrast, and since we were working only in black and white, effectively what we had were large gradients instead of different colors, where one “color” shifts and blends into another, making up the tones of the print.

At least I think that’s what he said. I could of course be making up the entire conversation in my head and attributing it to those circumstances, and obviously I don’t trust my memory enough to think that what I wrote happened actually happened exactly that way; I’m sure I attributed more eloquence to both myself and my professor at the time. The gist though, I’m sure is accurate.