Mastering Black and White Photography. John Garrett. 2005

At a time when digital is taking over the world, it is interesting to see a book championing the dying art of black and white photography. John Garrett, a photojournalist by trade has an impressive history of writing photography books, including the seminal 35mm photographers handbook. His work shown in the book includes some very good photography but surprisingly for a photo journalist some of the shots that stood out for me were in the still life section. His scope of work is quite broad, but I wouldn’t put that many of the photos included in the book in a ‘classic’ category. They are there more as examples for the text. His style reflects the years he has been in the industry, but that is not to say there are not some good photographs.

I found the book easy to read and only heavily technical in a couple of places. It is sad that many of the skills he discusses from B&W photography will soon be lost. He says he uses digital on commercial jobs, but that he has ‘yet to see a digital print that is better than a darkroom print’.

I enjoyed reading this book, I was able to pick out case studies that interested me; from my perspective it was a good reminder of skills I learned in art college that I have been unable to keep up with through lack of a darkroom.