SHADES OF GRAY

BY MARK NAKAMURA

Have you ever been on a mountaintop and wondered where to point your camera while looking down at the vista below? This is a conundrum I know well. I enjoy shooting landscape photographs from the tops of mountains and ridges. And, many of my landscape and seascape photographs are panoramic, allowing me to share the whole view with family and friends.

This black and white photograph was taken on TV Tower Road, at the top of Cuesta Grade, turning west (left as you are headed north on Highway 101). Follow the rutted, dirt road until coming to an overlook. This view is one of the few places where you do not have to hike to see such a vast expanse.

To get this shot, I stitched together four different photographs using my Sony 100-400mm lens, overlapping each frame by about a third, using a tripod to get the frames leveled as I panned left to right. I set the camera to manual mode- manual focus (usually infinity), manual ISO (usually set to 100), manual aperture (usually f8 or f11 for the sharpest setting), and manual shutter speed (usually around 1/60- 1/8000 of a second). Don’t have a digital single-lens reflex camera or a mirrorless camera? No problem. Use your iPhone or smartphone by setting it to “Panorama” or “Pano” mode.

Black and white photography has many advantages. You can focus on the subject without the distraction of color. Here, you see the shapes and curves of the hills and the layers of mountains, which are compressed using a long telephoto lens.

Another advantage of black and white photography is the contrast between light and dark. I photograph in color but convert many of my color images to a high-contrast black and white, adding drama to the scene. As a photographer, I can transform the reality of color into a surreal vision of light and shadow and share a truly new perspective.

Have you ever looked back on your early photographs of prints from film and thought they look dated? Next time, try black and white—it lends itself to a sense of timelessness.

World-renowned photographer Ansel Adams stated that black and white photography could be used to capture the essence of a scene, characterized by its dramatic contrast between light and dark, writing, “Black and white photography is a way of seeing the world that is both timeless and contemporary. It can be used to capture the beauty of the natural world, the drama of urban landscapes, or the intimacy of everyday moments. When done well, black and white photography can be both artful and evocative.” SLO LIFE