When it comes to photography, I like deep blacks, luminescent whites, and dynamic range that give you everything in between.  In a recent issue of Lenswork Magazine (Issue 100, May-June 2012), I discovered some wonderful photographs of seaweeds that blew me away in all these respects.  These are part of two series of photographs of seaweeds by Long Island photographer Alan Henriksen.  Lenswork Magazine is available online or, if you’re lucky, at your newsstand.  My own Barnes and Nobles has stopped carrying it.  You can also find some of these pictures in the  August Contest Special issue of Black and White Magazine, which gave Mr. Henriksen a merit award .   Unhappily the reproduction quality of B&W fails to give these images their well-deserved do. This, parenthetically points to the importance of the attention to detail that Brooks Jensen and the folks at Lenswork apply to photography reproduction).  Fortunately, you  can also visit Henriksen’s website, with the added bonus of seeing his other portfolios.

The seaweed images are examples of what can be accomplished with black and white photograph if you pay proper attention to dynamic range, not to mention if you had considerable talent and artistic vision. The blacks are marvelous.  The dynamic range lends an amazing sense of texture to the images, and the luminescent whites seem to pull the images into a third dimension.  You can tell that I’m impressed and excited. Look these photographs up and see for yourself.