Think Black & White at Vernon Camera Club

Many of the world’s most iconic images are black and white photographs.

Ansel Adam’s dramatic views of national parks and the intimate shapes of Edward Weston’s pepper photos are well known and show how alluring monotone images can be. Learn how to see and create great black and white photos at the Vernon Camera Club’s September 7 meeting at 2 p.m. with professional photographer, Rich McGuigan.

McGuigan will discuss how he approaches creating digital black and white photographs. McGuigan will start from the project idea, and walk through his process from start to finish using his Arches National Park project as an example. He will demonstrate his process step by step from taking the photo to printing it.

“I spend a great deal of time thinking about a project before I start shooting, what will the environment look like, the subject matter, the lighting. I repeatedly ask myself “What do I want you to see?” and also “How do I want you to feel?” said McGuigan.

“Before picking up the camera I first have to consider the story. I have to make decisions on what to show and how best to illustrate the story that I want to tell. This is why 2 photographs of the same scene can look very different as each photographer has their own agenda when creating the image,” McGuigan said

This thoughtful, artistic approach to photography stems from McGuigan’s BS degree in Applied Photography from the University of Delaware and his 25 years of advertising, editorial, and commercial photography work.

He is currently the vice president of Photo Engineering for CreativeDrive, a global content creation company with over 150 studios. In this role he refined a customized on-set workflow to improve quality, consistency, and color accuracy across multiple sets and/or locations for each client. Previously he was VP of Photography at Saks Fifth Avenue, Photographer at Lord & Taylor, and ran his own studio in NYC.