Black and White
19/09/22 14:38
Black and White
The very first photographs were shot in black and white. Decades later, even after the advent of colour, many photographers—especially those concerned with creating works of art—continued to shoot in black and white. The format remains popular even today. Nearly every consumer-level digital camera has a black and white mode available (for outputting JPEGs directly from the camera in monochrome), and all digital darkroom editing suites have at least one (and usually multiple) means of changing a colour photograph to black and white. Me personally I shot in Raw and with the mono turned on. This helps me focus on the form and not worry about the colour.
Why do black and white photographs continue to exercise this hold over the fancy of so many photographers when we have cameras and techniques at our disposal that can capture every colour under the sun? We can produce photographs of spectacular colour range, and yet the simple power of an effective black and white photo can leave even the most brilliantly realized colour shot in the artistic dust.
Why?
A large part of the reason, as I see it, lays in that very simplicity of the monochrome image. Removing the colour from a shot changes the focus—it shifts the viewer’s attention from the colours to things that can be more abstract, less immediately noticeable, and it presents the world to us in a way that few of us are used to seeing it. It can, by the very removal of that familiar element, generate an intense amount of interest and a powerful feeling of drama that might otherwise be overwhelmed by the presence of the colour. As a result of the powerful appeal of black and white imagery, photographers will inevitably continue to try their hand at making monochrome photographs. But it isn’t necessarily as easy as you might expect, and not every colour photograph will suddenly make a powerful, dramatic and artistic statement when converted into black and white. To create a good black and white image you need to start at the very beginning, when you are first looking out on an interesting scene, before you ever press down on the shutter button.
A Shift in Sight
Most of us see the world in colour. I do, and I’m very happy to have that ability. But to make the most effective black and white photograph possible, you need to develop the ability to take away those colours. The great black and white photographers of the past used to talk about “Seeing the world in black and white.” They weren’t referring literally to seeing it in monochrome, seeing it as it would appear once they processed the shot and had the black and white print in their hands.
A part of being able to see the world in black and white is pure, raw experience: the more black and white photographs you take, the better you will be able to understand what scenes and shots will work better in monochrome than in colour. Some of this is obvious, or at least may seem obvious, but the value comes from actually thinking about it, and considering these elements consciously as you shoot (until you reach such a point that you no longer even need to think about them, because they come so naturally to you). The elements include:
When you look past the colours in a scene, some of the first elements you’ll become aware of are shapes and repeating patterns, and texture. In the absence of colour, these elements come to dominate the image, and can be a guide in your composition. Look for interesting forms and juxtapositions of angles. Seek out triangles, in particular, and curves. Try to find shapes that match the Fibonacci Spiral, or at least conform loosely to the Rule of Thirds in the way they divide up your frame.
Hunt for patterns—repetitive formations of structure. And then look closely for that break in the pattern. A brick wall is a great pattern, but it’s also boring, unless you have that scrawled bit of amazing graffiti on it (or whatever it may be that caught your eye and stood out from the repetition around it).
Texture can really pop out of the image in black and white photography. Of course, colour shots can have great texture as well, but there is just something about black and white that lends itself to really giving a visceral feeling of the roughness of that bark, or the uneven bumps of that concrete, etc. And then, of course, look to combine all three—find repeating patterns of interesting shapes that have eye-catching textures.
Lighting and Contrast
When the colour information is removed from a photo, the quality and efficacy of the lighting can take a tremendous hit—or it can be incredibly enhanced. I’ve found that soft lighting is less effective in black and white (generally), whereas strong shadows (creating great shapes and patterns) can really come out when seen in monochrome.
In a way, “lighting” for black and white really means “shadows,” since we’re less concerned with that golden hue of magic hour and more interested in the way the light falls on our subject—that is, what unique shadows are created by that light source. Deep shadows have a character all their own, a character that can get somewhat lost in colour shots and really make themselves known in black and white.
Contrast follows logically from this. Areas of high contrast—the difference between light and dark—will particularly stand out in black and white shots. If what you are looking at has very low contrast, you will risk having a muddy or uninteresting shot when you convert it to monochrome, because there is nothing to grab the eye.
Tone
Tone is difficult to define and describe. It is one of those “know it when you see it” elements of photography. Broadly speaking, it is the feeling evoked by the photograph, by the combination of all the elements I listed above (shape, pattern, texture, light, contrast, etc). Tone can be dark and moody, like something out of a noir film, or can be light and airy, like a painting of a single cloud in an otherwise startlingly blue sky. It is the mood of the photograph. Black and white photographs lend themselves to setting a powerful tone. In your initial composition, you can concentrate on determining what this tone will be by focusing on the elements I listed above, and then try to mentally abstract away the colour.
Experience helps a great deal here, as does carefully looking over the great black and white photographs that other photographers have made before you. Pay particularly attention to how light and shadow can impact the mood of the shot—the tone—and imagine, as you work on your own shots out in the field, how shifting even a few steps left or right might significantly affect the tone. In a short time you’ll be able to look at a scene and get an immediate feel for the tone it will evoke in your viewers when they see it in black and white.
Colour
This is an odd one. Colour, for black and white photography? Well, if you convert your colour shots to black and white then colour actually becomes quite important.
The process of converting a colour shot into black and white involves, in most cases, making explicit decisions about the relative intensity the colours in your shot will be when translated into grayscale. You might make your blues nearly black and boost up the relative lightness your yellows and reds and greens in a landscape shot in order to give yourself that eye-catching, deep sky. If you keep this in mind when you are composing your shot, you can look for regions of strong colour differentiation, and use that to, in effect, enhance the contrast of your final black and white shot. The intensity of the blues and reds in a single shot might be nearly equal, when viewed in colour (not giving much in the way of contrast), but in the conversion process you can darken one and lighten the other, and create that deep sense of contrast that will pop so much in black and white.This is an odd one. Colour, for black and white photography? Well, if you convert your colour shots to black and white then colour actually becomes quite imp
The very first photographs were shot in black and white. Decades later, even after the advent of colour, many photographers—especially those concerned with creating works of art—continued to shoot in black and white. The format remains popular even today. Nearly every consumer-level digital camera has a black and white mode available (for outputting JPEGs directly from the camera in monochrome), and all digital darkroom editing suites have at least one (and usually multiple) means of changing a colour photograph to black and white. Me personally I shot in Raw and with the mono turned on. This helps me focus on the form and not worry about the colour.
Why do black and white photographs continue to exercise this hold over the fancy of so many photographers when we have cameras and techniques at our disposal that can capture every colour under the sun? We can produce photographs of spectacular colour range, and yet the simple power of an effective black and white photo can leave even the most brilliantly realized colour shot in the artistic dust.
Why?
A large part of the reason, as I see it, lays in that very simplicity of the monochrome image. Removing the colour from a shot changes the focus—it shifts the viewer’s attention from the colours to things that can be more abstract, less immediately noticeable, and it presents the world to us in a way that few of us are used to seeing it. It can, by the very removal of that familiar element, generate an intense amount of interest and a powerful feeling of drama that might otherwise be overwhelmed by the presence of the colour. As a result of the powerful appeal of black and white imagery, photographers will inevitably continue to try their hand at making monochrome photographs. But it isn’t necessarily as easy as you might expect, and not every colour photograph will suddenly make a powerful, dramatic and artistic statement when converted into black and white. To create a good black and white image you need to start at the very beginning, when you are first looking out on an interesting scene, before you ever press down on the shutter button.
A Shift in Sight
Most of us see the world in colour. I do, and I’m very happy to have that ability. But to make the most effective black and white photograph possible, you need to develop the ability to take away those colours. The great black and white photographers of the past used to talk about “Seeing the world in black and white.” They weren’t referring literally to seeing it in monochrome, seeing it as it would appear once they processed the shot and had the black and white print in their hands.
A part of being able to see the world in black and white is pure, raw experience: the more black and white photographs you take, the better you will be able to understand what scenes and shots will work better in monochrome than in colour. Some of this is obvious, or at least may seem obvious, but the value comes from actually thinking about it, and considering these elements consciously as you shoot (until you reach such a point that you no longer even need to think about them, because they come so naturally to you). The elements include:
- Shapes, Patterns, and Texture
- Lighting and Contrast
- Tone
- Colour
When you look past the colours in a scene, some of the first elements you’ll become aware of are shapes and repeating patterns, and texture. In the absence of colour, these elements come to dominate the image, and can be a guide in your composition. Look for interesting forms and juxtapositions of angles. Seek out triangles, in particular, and curves. Try to find shapes that match the Fibonacci Spiral, or at least conform loosely to the Rule of Thirds in the way they divide up your frame.
Hunt for patterns—repetitive formations of structure. And then look closely for that break in the pattern. A brick wall is a great pattern, but it’s also boring, unless you have that scrawled bit of amazing graffiti on it (or whatever it may be that caught your eye and stood out from the repetition around it).
Texture can really pop out of the image in black and white photography. Of course, colour shots can have great texture as well, but there is just something about black and white that lends itself to really giving a visceral feeling of the roughness of that bark, or the uneven bumps of that concrete, etc. And then, of course, look to combine all three—find repeating patterns of interesting shapes that have eye-catching textures.
Lighting and Contrast
When the colour information is removed from a photo, the quality and efficacy of the lighting can take a tremendous hit—or it can be incredibly enhanced. I’ve found that soft lighting is less effective in black and white (generally), whereas strong shadows (creating great shapes and patterns) can really come out when seen in monochrome.
In a way, “lighting” for black and white really means “shadows,” since we’re less concerned with that golden hue of magic hour and more interested in the way the light falls on our subject—that is, what unique shadows are created by that light source. Deep shadows have a character all their own, a character that can get somewhat lost in colour shots and really make themselves known in black and white.
Contrast follows logically from this. Areas of high contrast—the difference between light and dark—will particularly stand out in black and white shots. If what you are looking at has very low contrast, you will risk having a muddy or uninteresting shot when you convert it to monochrome, because there is nothing to grab the eye.
Tone
Tone is difficult to define and describe. It is one of those “know it when you see it” elements of photography. Broadly speaking, it is the feeling evoked by the photograph, by the combination of all the elements I listed above (shape, pattern, texture, light, contrast, etc). Tone can be dark and moody, like something out of a noir film, or can be light and airy, like a painting of a single cloud in an otherwise startlingly blue sky. It is the mood of the photograph. Black and white photographs lend themselves to setting a powerful tone. In your initial composition, you can concentrate on determining what this tone will be by focusing on the elements I listed above, and then try to mentally abstract away the colour.
Experience helps a great deal here, as does carefully looking over the great black and white photographs that other photographers have made before you. Pay particularly attention to how light and shadow can impact the mood of the shot—the tone—and imagine, as you work on your own shots out in the field, how shifting even a few steps left or right might significantly affect the tone. In a short time you’ll be able to look at a scene and get an immediate feel for the tone it will evoke in your viewers when they see it in black and white.
Colour
This is an odd one. Colour, for black and white photography? Well, if you convert your colour shots to black and white then colour actually becomes quite important.
The process of converting a colour shot into black and white involves, in most cases, making explicit decisions about the relative intensity the colours in your shot will be when translated into grayscale. You might make your blues nearly black and boost up the relative lightness your yellows and reds and greens in a landscape shot in order to give yourself that eye-catching, deep sky. If you keep this in mind when you are composing your shot, you can look for regions of strong colour differentiation, and use that to, in effect, enhance the contrast of your final black and white shot. The intensity of the blues and reds in a single shot might be nearly equal, when viewed in colour (not giving much in the way of contrast), but in the conversion process you can darken one and lighten the other, and create that deep sense of contrast that will pop so much in black and white.This is an odd one. Colour, for black and white photography? Well, if you convert your colour shots to black and white then colour actually becomes quite imp