“Black and white has a lasting appeal... I see it as timeless and evoking a deeper mood. It's a beautiful, contrasting marriage of elegance and haunting mystery. It allows your eye to have a cleaner separation of the elements... It becomes easier to process the information because it's less dynamic on a literal level, but deeper, I feel, on a subtle emotional level.” -- Brian Parillo

Brian Parillo is a dedicated B&W photographer whose dramatic and artistic architectural work was recently featured in Popular Photography. He’s made a powerful new series of images that evoke classic Hollywood glamour as well as the great cinematography that inspires his still work. Parillo has enthusiastically shared these images and his thoughts about his work:

(ALL PHOTOGRAPHS  COPYRIGHT BRIAN PARILLO, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)

I shoot most of my work in black and white as a personal preference, although I have two series that are extremely color centric. I generally don't gravitate towards color photography unless it's used in a clever, over-the-top manner that lends its self to surreal-like results.

Black and white photography has a lasting appeal to me. I see it as timeless and evoking a deeper mood. It's a beautiful, contrasting marriage of elegance and haunting mystery. It also allows your eye to have a cleaner separation of the elements in the image. It becomes easier to process the information because it's less dynamic on a literal level, but deeper, I feel on, a subtle emotional level.

I recently completed a series pertaining to Hollywood landmarks. Previous to that I had been shooting black-and-white images of the architecture of downtown Los Angeles. The Hollywood series was a natural segue, as they are almost interchangeable but just more iconic. A writer named Sabine Modder from an interior design blog called Moco Loco wrote about my architecture work and said it had a silver screen-like quality. I had images at the time that were Hollywood related but they didn't necessarily fit my architecture gallery. So I thought I'd elaborate more by diving strictly into the classic Hollywood landmarks while focusing on the silver screen aspect that people were seeing. 

I've lived in Los Angeles for quite a few years and I love the history of some of its more well-know sites. I wanted to create a gallery of work that felt as if it took you back to another place in time. It's easy to imagine some of the people that walked the halls of these famous structures. While shooting the Capitol Records building, for instance, I'd think of people like John Lennon, Miles Davis, or Elvis Presley. So it was extremely easy to tap into a daydream-like existence while shooting these buildings. Now when I look back at the series I see an almost ghostly quality to them. I also wanted them to read as cinematic, in a classic silver screen sense as well.

The 1950's and part of the 60's in Hollywood is perceived by many as a very glamorous time, so I hope that people feel some of the different levels of emotions that I've attempted to convey.

I don't follow the work of other photographers necessarily. I've drawn more inspiration from filmmakers like Orson Wells, Alfred Hitchcock and Elia Kazan. Black-and-white films of their period of time have aged so beautifully to me. Some of the material may be a bit dated but I think the overall aesthetic quality of the images have left a lasting impression on me. At some point in my life I'd like to direct or DP a film where I can enlist some of the elements that I enjoy in photography.

I first started shooting around 10 years ago, using a Nikon film camera. I absolutely love film and I look forward to going back to it at some point, but for now I work digitally, shooting with the Canon 5D Mark II. I treat Photoshop like a dark room. I spend countless hours on images by adjusting layers of light, giving them more dimension. It takes a bit of patience but the end result is a richer image full of beautiful contrast that almost seems unreal.

I like to shoot on days that are already filled with natural contrast. In L.A. the months of January through April are perfect for this. I'll often sit in an area that I'd like to shoot for an hour or so waiting for the sun to peak through heavy clouds, after or between a storm. The beauty of black and white photography is that it makes days appear stormier and grayer than they actually are. I love the light around 5pm during these days as the shadows play into the shot’s mood as well.

I shoot mostly with wide-angle lenses.

In general I don't use filters. Rather, I adjust exposures and levels in post by grabbing the skyline, for instance, and either raising or lowering the exposure levels. I also dramatically sharpen and then later blur the clouds to alleviate any grain that may occur while adjusting contrast levels. I often do the same with the structures at times by bringing more light onto them. 

I shoot everything in RAW in a monochrome setting which allows you to preview in B&W, but later when downloading the images they need to be converted back to black and white.

http://brianparillophotography.com/

http://www.popphoto.com/how-to/2011/03/my-project-powerful-towers

--bwphotopro.com

Los Angeles based fine art photographer Brian Parillo takes a cinematic approach to photography, capturing and creating fleeting timeless moments that give another meaning to the eye's perception. Sensual, textural, haunting, and mysterious, Brian's photos are a visceral response, encapsulating the human spirit in its varied states. Brian's work has been featured and published through out the world in magazines such as Popular Photography.

Born and raised in Connecticut, Brian now resides in Los Angeles full-time specializing in fine art mixed media with a focus on natural lighting and shadows. Much of his work uses the vast urban sprawl of Southern California as a backdrop, drawing inspiration from music, pop art and architecture. PHOTOGRAPHER BRIAN PARILLO, PICTURED BELOW.