alan frost photography

As hard as I try I can’t break out of my comfort zone. Whenever I find myself in a beautiful location which is full of colour, my instinctive monochromatic mind gets the better of me. As I explore the autumnal woodland of Arne Nature Reserve, near Wareham in Dorset I have a perfectly acceptable colour subject in front of me but in visualising and later processing the image I soon strip away all the colour, and work on a black and white conversion, and here is the result. A shot of ‘Bracken’ in amongst conifers.

I am not colour blind but I do seem to see the world in black and white and of course all the shades of grey in between. I am drawn to a pleasing composition, shapes and lines, strong textures and different tones. I believe my creativity improves once the distraction of colour is removed from the frame. I start to see things more clearly and whilst you cannot tell by looking at an image on a screen, a well printed black and white image on a suitable photographic paper is hard to beat.

Do click on the image to view a larger version and truly appreciate the level of detail in this shot.

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