As beautiful as color photography can be, it never gives me the chills like a master black and white image can. There is nothing quite like the tones in a black and white photograph to invoke that emotional response, the beauty lies in it’s simplicity, yet creating that monochrome image takes so much more skill than shooting in color. 

Even in my own photographs, the color ones I shoot don’t have quite the same meaning or even feel quite right as the black and white images.

Ansel Adams was the innovator of black and white tones and while many of the old masters created wonderful compositions they didn’t quite have the tonal quality that Adams had. As much as I love Elliot Erwitt’s wit or Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment” or Eisenstaedt’s photojournalism, it is always Adams that stands out for me.

And with all that, being it Adams, Erwitt, Eisenstaedt, Weston, Eddie Adams and the myriad of other masters of photography, I have yet to see a color photograph that even comes close to being what a photograph should be. All the color sunsets and flower photos in the world can’t hold a candle to this. (This will most likely be the only image I post here that I did not create)