Editing Energy: Depth in Black and White
A couple thoughts on a favorite editing and composition style
When I stand in front of a scene like Needle Rock, what pulls me in is not the obvious shape of the landscape, but the energy inside it. Black and white strips away the comfort of color and leaves you with the bones of the image. Light, form, texture and tension. Everything else falls away.
I shot this yesterday out in Crawford. The air had that late-fall quiet, the kind that makes sound travel farther than it should. Needle Rock stood there like it has for thousands of years, a stone spine rising out of the ranchland. In color it is beautiful. In black and white it becomes something else entirely. Something older. Something closer to the truth of the place.
What I chase with my Silver Gelatin style is depth. Not clarity for its own sake. Not contrast for drama alone. Depth. The kind that feels carved, not painted. The kind you can walk into.
Energy Lives in the Midtones
Most people think black and white is about crushing shadows and brightening highlights. For me, the real life of an image lives in the midtones. That is where the muscle is. The midtones carry the texture of the land. They hold the subtle changes in light that make the shot feel alive and three-dimensional.
In this image, the rolling hillside beneath the rock is all midtone work. Every shrub, every fold in the terrain, every faint seam of erosion carries weight because the light has somewhere to live. This is where the energy comes from. Not from extremes, but from controlled restraint.
Letting the Subject Breathe
Needle Rock dominates the frame on its own. It doesn’t need help. A heavy hand in editing would crush the life out of it. I kept the contrast gentle. The highlights are clean but not sharp. The shadows fall away naturally. The separation from the mountains behind it is simple. No tricks. Just letting the landmark breathe.
Depth is not created by doing more. It is created by doing less and letting the land speak for itself.
Energy Through Restraint
I learned early on that black and white is a conversation between intention and restraint. You push the tonal range until the image opens up, then stop before the energy collapses. There is a point where a black and white image feels charged. That is what I chase. Not a perfect histogram. Not a preset. Not a dramatic effect.
A feeling.
In this frame, the energy sits in the push and pull between foreground quiet and background presence. The fence line creates a path. The valley holds stillness. Needle Rock rises with force, but never with arrogance. The mountains behind it form a second wave of depth. The sky stays simple. Everything works together without fighting for attention.
This is the part of editing I care about. Not the sliders. Not the recipe. The energy.
Why I Keep Returning to This Style
As I get deeper into my Silver Gelatin work, I find myself leaning harder into images that feel carved by light. Black and white gives me room to remove everything unimportant. It lets the land show its character. It also forces me to slow down. To look harder. To feel more.
Colorado has a way of reminding you that you’re small. Black and white reminds you that the world is bigger than the colors we remember it in.
Editing Energy is my way of honoring that truth.
Captured in Crawford, Colorado. Silver Gelatin style. Sony Alpha.