Esthetics of Black Skies in B&W Landscapes

[Michael Heald]

Hello! I just received Lenwork and their landscape portfolio has a lot of photos with black skies. The black skies do increase the drama. I presume that they were produced with a deep red filter and development for high contrast.
LF Magazine came at the same time. I checked the other portfolios in Lenswork and reviewed some Ansel Adams photos in The Making of 40 Photographs. Many have dark to very dark skies. The photos that have people in them don't (I presume this has to do with the effect of red filtering on skin tones and that these photos have much less sky in them).
At first blush, these photos appealed to me, then as I went back through these magazines and Ansel's book, I found myself drawn more to the photos that had darkening of skies, but not black skies.
What do folks think of black skies in high contrast landscapes? Best regards.

Mike

[clay harmon]

Wagner versus Chopin.

[Ken Lee]

What Clay said.

[Bruce Watson]

What Ken said.

[Michael Mutmansky]

What Bruce, Ken, and Clay said.

[Hugo Zhang]

What Bruce, Ken, Clay and Michael said.

[John Kasaian]

What Bruce, Ken, Clay and Michael said.

[John Kasaian]

...and Hugo

[Jack Flesher]

I agree with the first Michael The over-abundance of zone II skies setting off zone VIII clouds wears thin on my viewing eye too. I definitely prefer dark skies, say zone III/IV, but not the almost IR style black we are seeing a lot of; they look "over-cooked" and fake to me.

[Pete Roody]

Michael,

I had the same reaction as you to the same issue of Lenswork. Of course this is just my preference. After all, Ansel used a red filter to darken the sky in his 'Half Dome' photo, and that wasn't half bad. These days I like a less filtered look like you see with Carlton Watkins shots of Yosemite. Of course, he had no choice since he used glass plates.

Pete