Adam Griffith
What makes black and white photography important to you?
The importance of black and white photography to me lies in the simplicity of the overall initial image itself while allowing for complexity to emerge through the combination of the composition, lighting, and subject that each photograph reveals. It takes away the colors that we are accustomed to seeing throughout our daily life and brings about a new way of “seeing” the world we walk through each day.
What inspires you to make photographs?
Traveling through different countries and experiencing the variety of cultures inspires my photography. By living and working in the same environment day-in and day-out, the drive to photograph the world around me begins to subside and the mundane wins over, causing my desire to photograph to diminish. However, traveling to each new place fuels my want to grab my camera and shoot each passing moment. It is in street photography that I’m learning about the extraordinary in what we deem ordinary on a daily basis.
Why is black and white photography so important to our future in the art world?
Just as color can provide a sense of emotion to the viewer, black and white photography simply yields another contrasting emotion that might not particularly be felt through color. It is important to discern between the multitude of emotions that are created through photography in order to provide importance to each facet of this medium, whether black and white or color is the chosen format. Taking composition, lighting, and subject out of the equation, the importance of black and white photography in the art world can be based on this theory of emotion alone - pure, stark emotion.
