Bryan Briscoe-Smith's Gallery
Please select a gallery to the right to view pictures
When I began to write this statement, I asked myself how I should convey to the reader my devotion to black and white photography. Even though we live in a world of color with major advances in all fields of photography, I think the easiest way is to say that my work in black and white photography gives me as much pleasure and satisfaction as the most devoted color photographers get from their work.
There are many wonderful color photographs, but they do not reveal the light, the shadows, the composition or the many changing levels of tones evident in a scene. They do not show the detail of photography or the basic requirements of photography that speak to me. Black and white photography reveals the fine art characteristics of the image, the little nuances that made a black and white image great. These are the elements that I strive for.
I have and will continue to practice direct photography. I do not believe in altering a scene or a print to fit my interpretation of how I think it should be or to make it more appealing. Rather I photograph what I see and what my camera sees, and that becomes the final print.
I have photographed many subjects. Some I have purposely looked for. Some I have happened upon by accident, and some are the things we see every day and take for granted. We see them, and yet we don't see them. It is this that makes photography, both color and black and white, so very interesting and satisfying and makes my quest for the perfect image so very demanding. It's what makes my photography life worthwhile.
I have no hidden secrets to my photography. Whether I photograph castles in England, missions in the Southwest, ghost towns and old gold mines in Colorado, models in a studio setting or anything else, they are all unique in their own individual ways.
The images on this Web site were taken with a Nikon FA (England). The others were all taken with a Mamiya 645 Pro TL with various lenses and few or no filters.
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