The Magic of Black and White Photography with Susanna Euston

About the series

Some photographs only become themselves once the colour is taken away. The trouble is knowing which ones, and knowing it before you press the shutter rather than three months later at the computer.

Susanna Euston has been working that out for a long time. She is an award-winning landscape and flower photographer, and her favourite pictures of both have almost always ended up in black and white. She came up through film and the wet darkroom and now works digitally, so she has seen it from both sides.

Over three evenings she takes us from seeing in black and white, through converting and crafting in Photoshop, to a final working session using our own pictures.

Outline:

Session One: Capturing Images for Black & White Conversion — Monday 7 September, 19:00 BST

Susanna explores seeing in black and white. How do you know a subject will make a good mono image? She covers how colours translate, the effects of light and contrast, a quick look at the Zone System, infrared black and white and practical tips as you start making your own.

She opens with something she has been researching specially for us: how our vision actually develops and why black and white turns out to be the base that colour is built on top of.

Session Two: Crafting B&W Images in the Digital Darkroom — Monday 5 October, 19:00 BST

Working in Photoshop, Susanna shares her favourite conversion techniques, basic and advanced, to make your black and white images radiate.

Session Three: Celebrate Your Black & White Images! — Monday 2 November, 17:00 GMT

Please note the earlier start for this session.

A working evening using our own pictures. Bring something you have made if you would like to and Susanna will go through real images live, celebrating and giving thoughts on each one. Worth coming to even if you would rather just watch, because watching somebody work on a real photograph is usually where it clicks.

What you'll need

A camera, and something to convert your pictures in. Photoshop is what Susanna uses in session two, though the thinking applies whatever you use, such as Affinity.

For the November evening you are very welcome to bring pictures you have made, but you do not have to.

Who this is for

Anyone who likes black and white images but is not sure how to get there deliberately. No particular genre. If you have converted a picture to mono, felt it was not quite right, and had no idea what to change, this is for you.

About Susanna

Susanna Euston is a photographer, artist and graphic designer with more than forty years behind her. She began in documentary, commercial and portrait work, and turned to landscape in 1995 when she moved to Asheville in North Carolina to be near the national parks and forests. She describes herself now as a landscape and flower photographer.

She works in classical black and white and colour and also in infrared, macro and intentional camera movement. She organises her year around them. Macro through the winter. Camera movement and multiple exposure in spring and autumn. Infrared all summer. Classical work running through the whole year. That range is why she can come at black and white from so many directions.

Writing in LensWork, Brooks Jensen called her portfolio a terrific body of work noting its variety and unique visions.

She teaches one to one and in private workshops, speaks to camera clubs across her region and runs an eight-week black and white course for her university's OLLI programme. Her work is exhibited across Western North Carolina and at Trackside Studios in Asheville's River Arts District.

See more of Susanna's work: SusannaEustonPhotography.com

From Mark

Susanna has been part of this community for a long time. She turns up, she watches, and if you have ever been in a Camversation chat and had a question quietly answered by someone who was not the presenter, there is a fair chance it was her.

What I like about this series is the shape of it. Plenty of people can show you a black and white conversion. Susanna wants you to understand why a picture wants to be mono in the first place, which is the harder and more useful thing and she has deliberately built the third session around your work rather than hers.

Tickets

Sessions only, £18

All three live sessions. Every session is recorded, so if you cannot make one live you will not miss anything.

Sessions + Susanna's Slides, £28

Everything above, plus Susanna's slides from both teaching sessions, September and October, sent out after each one, so you can go back over the examples in your own time. The slides are £12 afterwards, so taking them with your ticket saves you £4. The November session is a working evening on our own pictures, so there are no slides for that one.

The joining link will be sent out immediately after booking.