If Ansel Adams had had the darkroom power of Lightroom to manipulate black and white imaging, he’d do a leaping victory dance like Jack Black in The Big Year. The creative power of the digital darkroom is endless; the ease of creating black and white images with impact astonishing. Color as a design element disappears with black and white, but color channels are used in the digital black and white darkroom like color filters of old, in addition to the more traditional dodge and burn. I selected images here with strong design elements in areas other than color— lines, repeat patterns and shapes, mirror reflections. Without color, the play of light on the land and sky is all the more important. Cloud shapes often come into play— lenticular, mare’s tails, Botticelli, cumulus. Enjoy.
