Spotlight

Gretchen Robinette (NSFW)

Chris Gampat
No Comments
12/07/2015
3 Mins read

Last Updated on 12/07/2015 by Chris Gampat

image

GRETCHEN ROBINETTE Photographer

Tumblr

What makes black and white photography so important to you?

Black and white photography is what first inspired me to pick up a camera, shooting 35mm film. It felt like I could create my own world by removing the color, yet still remain rooted in reality, not fantasy. Unlike people who learned photography from the internet, but I took an entire semester course called The Zone System, formulated by Ansel Adams, that teaches you how to see every color, in any temperature, or type of light, as a specific shade of grey on the Zone System scale of 1 thru 10, with 5 being middle grey. With this system, you decide before you shoot, exactly which zone you want each element in a scene to be, picking the exposure for the shadow fall off, then processing the film with a specific temperature for the highlights. This also continues on to the printing, which is super tedious and nerve racking if you don’t actually obsess over this stuff. Ansel Adams said once that you only truly know the Zone System when you can put your toast in the correct zone everyday, so I of course had to do this. With digital however, you are really only concerned with Zones III thru VII. All of this analysis was really what taught me the most about seeing and creating images. Even though I don’t use this anymore, I still unconsciously consider it when I shoot, and it is really the basis of understanding color as well.

What inspires you to create photographs?

Some times I specifically go out to make photos, but other times I just see a scene or moment and without thought, am inspired to photograph it. I’m not sure if it always is inspired, but I have found if I focus on a specific idea, or theme in my head, I’ll start seeing it everywhere, and when I see it, I know and just immediately shoot. Only recently have I started setting up shoots and posing people, but for years I did more candid, street, or documentary style, which is mostly inspired by light and elements just coming together.

Why is black and white photography so important to our future in the art
world?

If you really want to understand light and how it affects skin tone, the composition of a scene, the entire mood or meaning within an image, you have to understand how to see without the influence of colors. I love color photography (now although I used to hate it) but some images you can strip away the amazing vibrant colors, convert to black and white, and what do you have? A mediocre composition. I’m pretty sure a good portion of the Instagram stars shooting everything in lemon yellow or all pastels, would have a difficult time creating great images if they were forced to leave the crutch of color. Like, try creating an outstanding image of fall leaves in black and white, with tonal separation between each different leaf color, where the leaves still pop. An exception though, Thanksgiving turkey. Turkey in black and white, yuck. I praise whoever can make a turkey look appetizing without color. Black and white is important to photography just as understanding human emotions are. The human eye can be distorted by color, but the emotions are what remain the same.

image
image
image
image
image
image
image
image
image
black and white Member Only Photography portrait street photography
Shares
Written by

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.