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The Magic of Black and White in 27 Photos

By Ellyn Kail on May 30, 2018

Embracing, from the series In here I do exist © Sara Cuce (@sara_cuce)

Morning in Itamambuca © Luciano Fonseca (@lucianosfonseca)

We are still standing © Oliver Takac (@olivertakac)

“Black and white is abstract,” the great photographer Joel Sternfeld once said. “Looking at a black and white photograph, you are already looking at a strange world.” In shades of gray, reality bends, breaks, and coalesces to form something new. For our latest online group show of images from The Print Swap collection, we pulled together these twenty-two monochromatic photographs. The artists featured herein hail from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Romania, Slovakia, Germany, Belgium, Greece, and Vietnam, and yet they have all traveled outside of time to set foot in that surreal territory known as black and white photography. When my husband was a small child, looking at old photographs, he asked his mother, “When was the world black and white?” It would seem the answer is, “Then and now and whenever we want it to be.”

The Print Swap is a project by Feature Shoot. We invite photographers to submit by tagging their images #theprintswap on Instagram. Alison Zavos, the Founder of Feature Shoot, curates the collection, and selected photographers give a print and receive a surprise print from another participating photographer somewhere in the world. Going forward, Print Swap photographers will also have the option of selling their photographs via our new store, Superfine Prints. Learn more about The Print Swap here, and follow along on Instagram (@theprintswap) for updates.