My love letter to black and white photography.

If I could do one thing as a photographer from today until I retire or die, it's shoot black and white photography.

In college I got a bit of a bad reputation when I challenged myself to shoot only black and white for a year. In that year I covered hundreds of sporting events, worked concerts, traveled and took on portrait jobs all in black and white. This choice didn't go over well with my classmates, my coworkers on the school paper, the yearbook team or my University PR team.

It was however, an amazing experience for me. I learned more during that year working in black and white than I did during the rest of my college experience. I learned how light worked on film, I learned how shadows changed the shape of my subjects, how composition changed a subject, and I learned what brought emotion into an image.

Those all sound like big and bold announcements, but what I really learned during that time is that those are the building blocks of strong images. If you don't have those fundamental pillars of light, emotion and composition you don't really have a photograph worth taking.

This portrait of Frank, my last dog, bright me back into photography and started my journey into the pet photography world. I shot this on a camera that died on me a year ago, using a light my college professor gave to me, in my basement after getting off a shift at the woodshop. In this image we have strong light, a powerful composition and an emotional connection. Nothing fancy, just strong fundamentals of imagery. This is the image that made me think I was worth something as a pet photographer, and is something that has kept me fueled as a creative over the past couple of years.

This past week I had the ability to finally use this lighting setup again and I was floored by the results. 3 years later, new lights, new camera, in my own studio the fundamentals of what makes these images work hasn't changed.

Getting to build these images in studio has been another huge boost to me, and I can't wait to make more. I still love black and white photography. I love how it takes all distractions away from an image and dials it down to the basics. Who is your dog? Your cat? What emotion can we find in their eyes? Are they feeling playful, pensive, frustrated, inquisitive?

Do they think you're going to give them cheese? Like right now?

Maybe that's a question we can only answer while they're in front of the camera.