In a world we see in color, instant smart phone color photographs, and selfies -- color is king. You don’t get to see many black & white photographs or photography except in an art gallery or in an art exhibition.

The first photographic images back in the 1830’s used a process called heliography invented by the French inventor Nicéphore Niépce. He used a portable camera obscura to expose a pewter plate coated with bitumen to light. The image produced was shades of gray, black ( the “darks” ), and white ( the “lights” ). Since then, black and white photography has evolved from film to digital. The early masters of black white photography such as American photographer Ansel Adams and French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson used their creative talents to make black and white photography to an art form. With Ansel Adams known for this environmental and landscape photography and Cartier-Bresson known for his unique candid humanistic street life photography.

Today’s black and white photography is done digitally. Today’s digital photographers shoot in color and using software during post-processing, convert the image to black and white. It is a unique creative skill to create black and white photographs from color that look like an original black and white photograph. However, some photographers still shoot on black and white film and process the film the “old fashioned way” like the masters.

FSM asked its contributing photographers to showcase their black and white photography in this issue. The photographs on the following pages highlight a variety of photography genres. The editors and staff hope it gives you an appreciation of the Lost Art: Black & White Photography - People, Places, Life, and Nature.