If your appetite for photography is solely sustained on the corn flakes of social media, then you’re probably not going to know who I’m talking about. To that end, I hope that one day Vincent Versace gains the same level of fame that Ansel Adams did when he talked about using the zone system and exposures with glass plates and all. Versace did pretty much the equivalent of this — but in the digital darkroom. And without his work, we probably wouldn’t be doing black and white photography the way that we do today. In the past two decades, his books have been Amazon best sellers. And without understanding the work that he’s done, it’s fair to say that the digital photography world wouldn’t be what it is today.
All images by Vincent Versace. Used with permission. For more images, please check out his website.
Through our Nikon reps, Vincent arranges to meet up with me on a visit to NYC. Vincent wanted to walk around and finally end up at Katz’s Delt — where he has a tradition to buy and ship 75 lbs of pastrami back to California. Yes, that’s right, 75 lbs of that stuff. I’d met Vincent originally when I was the Social Media Content Developer over at B&H Photo and during the first few years of my founding the Phoblographer. These days, I don’t do content — I write articles.
He didn’t remember me — and I flat out told him that I’m sure he wouldn’t. And unlike most others in the photo industry, I knew it wasn’t because I’m not a memorable person, but I know what it’s like to have and meet so many people in the industry that you can’t remember them all.
Lastly, I believe that we don’t take images; rather, images take us. I’ve come to the conclusion that we don’t create photographs—we create optical illusions…It’s up to us to decide where and how the viewer’s eye is directed in an image.
Vincent Versace
One of the first things he does is critique the fact that a Tamron lens is attached to the Nikon Z8 I have on loan. Vincent is a Nikon Ambassador, so I kind of expected this to come. He starts talking to me about MTF charts, sharpness, and how the optics aren’t designed for higher megapixel sensors. I stop him with a small touch to the arm to interrupt him.
“How is this going to make me a better photographer and get the deals that you make as a photographer?” I ask.
“It won’t,” He tells me, and then we change the subject to working on sets.
Vincent comes from a far different world of photography than I do — and that probably many other people do. At the age of six, he went into his uncle’s darkroom and watched him do a “dodge and burn hand dance,” he calls it. It’s there at he saw an image magically appear on paper while getting a whiff of fixer. He was hooked. So Vincent saved up his allowance, bought a camera at a garage sale, sold his first photograph to a local newspaper at nine years old, and since then he’s been doing it for the majority of his life.
Typically in our interviews, the Phoblographer summarizes and quotes from the person we’re speaking to. But in this case, we’d be doing the genius that is Vincent Versace an injustice if you didn’t read his words for yourself.
My biggest challenge with making big prints is that I don’t have the wall space to display everything at 44×36.
Vincent Versace
Vincent’s books are also long considered the holy books to those of us who do a lot of black and white image processing.
Phoblographer: Over a decade ago, you changed the way that so many photographers make black-and-white images on a nearly Sebastio Salgado level. But how do you feel you’ve evolved and your creative vision has changed with who you are as a person? And most importantly, how do you feel it’s made you a better artist without being technical?
Vincent Versace: Over the past 12 years, I’ve developed some observations about my approach to both my work as a photographer and how I teach photography.
First, I’ve come to believe that creativity can be taught. More specifically, as John Cleese posits in his book, Creativity, one can create an environment in which creativity can flourish.
For me, this involves striving to know everything there is to know about everything there is to know—not to be a know-it-all (which can be truly annoying to others), but to continuously expand the depth of my knowledge. I want to float on an ocean of knowledge so vast that, no matter how deep I dive, my feet never touch the bottom.
I’ve come to view facts as grains of sand that wash up out of this ocean of knowledge. If enough of them coalesce, I get an epiphany beach.
I also recognize that, at best, we can consciously manage only six, maybe seven things at once. Anything beyond that leads to sensory overload and task saturation, which can result in varying levels of paralysis. The key, I’ve found, is this: the more I know, the deeper my understanding becomes. Combined with practice, this allows me to offload tasks to my subconscious, freeing my conscious mind to focus on the six or seven things immediately in front of me. This makes it easier to create an environment where creativity can thrive.
I’ve come to believe that creativity can be taught.
Vincent Versace
Second, although I’ve worked hard to develop my post-processing skills, I strive to do as little as possible to an image. It seems there are two schools of thought: either you’ve never met an image you didn’t want to futz with, or you’ve never met an image you hope you don’t have to futz with. I’ve decidedly become a practitioner of the latter.
Lastly, I believe that we don’t take images; rather, images take us. I’ve come to the conclusion that we don’t create photographs—we create optical illusions. Essentially, all photographs are some variation of the “French Drop” coin trick. It’s up to us to decide where and how the viewer’s eye is directed in an image.
As to my creative vision? Creative vision comes from internal moral, ethical and the degree of social consciousness one possesses. You lead a good life and you are a good person you will tend to take good pictures. For me I have come to believe that my job is to see the pretty and tell the truth with my images. Even though what we create are optical illusions Picasso said it best “Art is the lie that tells the truth.”
A lot of your work these days involves you working on film sets. But can you talk to us about your personal work that’s not paid these days? What’s bringing you joy and what are you making big prints of what you only want to hang at your place?
Vincent Versace: It’s true that I’ve been doing more feature film work post-pandemic, in addition to all the other types of photography I shoot, but for me, all my work is personal. I don’t approach work that offers immediate economic reward any differently than work that doesn’t. The joy is in the doing.
My biggest challenge with making big prints is that I don’t have the wall space to display everything at 44×36. For every image I post-process, I make a 13×19 print. The print is still my favorite buzz in photography. There’s something magical about creating a print that takes your breath away—something you have made becomes more than just you; it becomes something larger than you. That’s a rush.
To you, when does an image warrant being converted into black and white from color?
Vincent Versace: There are four key elements in any photograph: light, gesture, color, and timelessness. I decided to convert an image from color to black and white when the color starts to get in the way of the gesture. Out of light, gesture, and color, light and color are obvious components, but gesture is the most telling—it’s the most important. It’s from the combination of these three, with gesture taking the lead, that timelessness emerges.
But what exactly is gesture? The dictionary defines it as “a movement of the body or limbs that expresses or emphasizes an idea or a feeling.” That’s technically true, but it misses the point when it comes to photography. There is gesture in everything. Take water, for example—it can be still, placid, rippling, crashing, falling, bubbling, and so on. Each of these expressions of water is a gesture.
So when the color distracts from the gesture of the image that is when an image needs to be abstracted to black and white.
In your personal opinion, when is an image too sharp? Moose Peterson talks about how black and white images appear very sharp because of how our minds perceive the black levels. So, what are your thoughts on all this?
Vincent Versace: The answer to this question, as I have come to understand things, is a bit more that few sentences.
I think this is where this thought may originate from. Let us consider the difference between color film, black-and-white film images, and digital capture. With color film, when the film is exposed the image is formed through sensitized dye layers that release “dye clouds” into the emulsion during development, while the light-sensitive materials like silver halide or bromides are washed away. In contrast, with black-and-white films, these sensitized materials remain embedded in the emulsion, resulting in what appears to be a sharper image.
…although I’ve worked hard to develop my post-processing skills, I strive to do as little as possible to an image. It seems there are two schools of thought: either you’ve never met an image you didn’t want to futz with, or you’ve never met an image you hope you don’t have to futz with. I’ve decidedly become a practitioner of the latter.
Vincent Versace
When black-and-white images are printed, the silver halide and bromides are embedded in the paper’s emulsion, which only renders a grayscale image. This gives black-and-white prints an inherent sharpness, not necessarily because of the grayscale but due to the process itself. So, it is not just the varying levels of black and gray that create the impression of sharpness—it’s the underlying chemical process that plays a significant role in that perception that gives the appearance of sharpness it is the process that is the greater contributor to sharpness.
Digital images are a completely different ball of wax.
If we consider, as I have come to believe, that all photographs are optical illusions, then understanding how we perceive what we see visually is far more important than relying the surface observations of something, like black and white images are sharper, or that wide angle lens have a greater depth of field than telephoto lens (all lenses have the same depth of field.) or that 17th-century painting theory, should be the commandments of composition which is still the way photography is taught.
“Art is the lie that tells the truth.”
Vincent Versace, quoting Picasso
When it comes to the idea that “black and white images look sharp because of how our minds perceive black levels,” I can see where that notion comes from, but it oversimplifies the underlying reason and I think it is a bit more nuanced than that. Our eyes naturally gravitate toward contrast—they are simply hard wired that way. In photography, contrast is defined as “the range of brightness from the lightest to the darkest in an image.” That translates to the 0-255 scale of gradation that is used in digital photography today. It breaks down thusly: On a scale from 0 to 255, 0 is pure black, and 255 is pure white. A high-contrast image has a steep transition from dark to light, while a low-contrast image has a more gradual transition.
For example, there is a difference between what is in focus and what’s sharp, and sharpness itself can often be an optical illusion. I.e. In focus to blur is different to high sharpness to low sharpness. The illusion of sharpness, within the area of in focus, is usually created by enhancing contrast at the high frequency edges of objects within the image. That’s basically what the Unsharp Mask tool in editing software does. This effect is called the Craik–O’Brien–Cornsweet illusion, also known as the Cornsweet edge, which was developed in the late 1960s. OR Contrast, the ratio of light to dark, being aded to the high frequency edges of image structure the one side has a 255 edge added and one side has a 0 edge added cause the image structure edges to appear sharper because of contrast. You may know this effect by another name. Unsharp mask. Why it may appear then that black white image appear sharper is because the color is providing some degree of camouflage to the artifacting of adding unsharp mask or boosting image structure contrasts.
So the surface take may be black and white images can look sharper that color images but the actual reason is a much deeper reason that affords the the creator of an image far more nuances control of the viewer’s eye if you have a deeper understanding of the why. It is that understanding that adds to the knowledge that helps create an environment where you can allow creativity to occur easier and with greater clarity.
Knowledge is power. Ignorance is not a virtue. Technique makes it possible so your artistic voice does not have to shout to be heard but can whisper and fill a room.
We really liked your images partially because, as we’ve been going through various projects, there’s something that’s very human about it. With that said, what are your thoughts about all the AI projects out there these days and “AI images” as they’re called? How much post-production do you typically do? And how do you feel that it’s affecting the whole misunderstanding of art vs content in photography?
Vincent Versace: In my approach to photography, there are three main pillars that guide everything I do.
The first pillar is centered on truth of spontaneity. In absolutely spontaneity you get absolute truth. You can only be one way if you are spontaneous and that is truthful. I do not pre visualize what I am going to shoot before I shoot it, I strive to be spontaneous when I shoot, I find that what emerges is always truthful—nothing forced or contrived.
The second pillar is the belief that I don’t take my images; they take me. The journey of capturing an image isn’t about dragging the image through the lens kicking and screaming, but rather letting the image pull me through the lens. If something looks interesting, I snap the picture without hesitation. It’s a natural and instinctive process. Simply put- If it looks cool take a picture of it.
…when the color distracts from the gesture of the image that is when an image needs to be abstracted to black and white.
Vincent Versace
The third pillar revolves around the idea that a still photograph is called “still” not because the objects within it are not moving, but because the image itself doesn’t move. The real mission in photography is to capture the motion with stillness.
When it comes to whether my work is considered art, I have always maintained that what I do is expression, not art. “Art” and “Artist” are social labels, not ones I choose for myself. If others see my work as art or label me an artist, that is their perception. For me, art happens in fleeting moments when someone I do not know, have never met labels my work “art” and accuses me of being an artist—but only in those moments. The rest is expression.
One of the biggest misunderstandings in photography is that anyone with a camera believes they can be a photographer on the same level as someone who has been honing their craft for years. Owning a camera does not make you a photographer any more than buying a cello makes you a cellist. There’s a vast disconnect between owning the tool and mastering the craft.
As for AI in art and photography? It is a tool, a useful one, especially for things like fixing blown highlights or removing unwanted elements. But it is just that—a tool. It reminds me of the High Dynamic Range (HDR) craze, where the technique became elevated to an art form for a brief moment, but in reality, it was just a way to bring detail into shadows and highlights. Just because something looks weird and it is difficult or impossible to understand does not make it art. I can be impossible to understand it it just looks weird.
While I do think AI could eventually lead to an extinction-level event for humanity, I do not see it doing that to art. And those who specialize in crafting AI-generated images are not suddenly going to become the new enlightened artists of our time. The science behind AI is incredible—like something out of a science fiction novel—but it is just not real to me. Every AI image I have seen so far feels sad and empty.
In the end, water finds its own level.