A few years ago I was traveling in Bolivia. The trip was dedicated largely to photography and I spent time in many parts of that diverse, beautiful, and wonderful country. A photographic highlight was the high plateau of the Atacama Desert in the southwest corner of Bolivia. It’s a bizarre place with strange rock formations, toxic, volcanic lakes, and almost entirely lacking in rain. I loved it there. But from a photographic perspective it was hard. Close to the equator, the periods of golden light in the early morning and evening are short indeed. The days are dominated by hours of hot, bright, and contrasty sunlight. Very difficult for photography. I made images anyway, knowing I wasn’t likely to return to these places anytime soon.
Later, in the computer, I took one look at most of these hot-light photos and left them untouched, occupying hard drive space. Nothing, I assumed, could fix that awful flat look. Then, for some unknown reason, just a couple of weeks ago, I wondered how those old images might translate into black and white. Some it turns out, translated quite well indeed. Below is the “before” version of the image above. Now I’m going to have to go back through other dismissed images in my collection to see if there are other hidden gems.
By the way, in my upcoming issue of Photographic I’ll have an extended article on black and white. Should be on news stands in late April, so be sure to pick up a copy.
