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Black and White Photography (part 1)
Despite the ... popularity of colour film / digital ... B&W as popular as ever.
In the 80s, it was often seen as old fashioned. Most high street developing labs could not even deal with black and white film, and it was the preserve of those with their own darkrooms (yes I was one of those people). But with people able to print photo-lab quality prints on an inexpensive home inkjet printer, it's popularity had grown to levels not seen since the pre-colour days. There are even printers which actively boast superior quality black and white prints by the inclusion of not just black inks but also grey inks.
Black and white is a bit of a misnomer, as an image consists not just of black and white pixels, but many shades of grey in between. But we won't go against the well established convention so we'll stick to calling it black and white (B&W for short).
Black and White and the Digital Age
The quality of modern digital cameras has rejuvenated many peoples interest in photography as a genuine hobby. Many of these people may well have experimented with black and white film in the past. Well with digital, it's easier to get into black and white than it has ever been. Every digital camera I know of has the option to take black and white photos. Photo editing software also have a wide range of tools to convert colour images into black and white.
It you look on sites like art.com - you'll see a wide range of fine art prints available that are produced in black and white or a tinted monochrome format. It's a powerful format and one that can have a greater visual impact that any colour image.
Why Black and White?
Let's start with a quote...
"Why would anyone want to photograph an indisputably colourful world in monochrome? If colour film had been invented first, would anybody even contemplate photographing in black and white?" - Russel Miller, "Magnum: Fifty Years at the Front Line of History by Russell Miller", ISBN: 0802116310 , Page 4.
Is he right? Who knows. I suspect it might not be as popular, but I am convinced that plenty of photographers would still appreciate the versatility of the medium, and the emotive power a monochrome image can have.
It is important to remember though that not every image will work well as a black and white. The colour might play a vital part in what makes the image interesting. Or it could be that removing the colour makes certain parts of the image indistinguishable (for example adjacent shades of blue and green that when mapped to greyscale result in the same shade).
In this image, the colour is an important feature, and even though the black and white was edited to enhance the contrast, it is still not as pleasing as the colour version.
When To Use Black and White
By removing all the colour from an image, it focuses the viewers attention on form and composition, and helps emphasise qualities in the image such as shape and texture.
Although most cameras have a mode to shoot in black and white, it is always better to shoot in colour and convert to monochrome later. You will have more control over the conversion process, and you'll retain the option to keep the colour version as your preferred option.
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Best of Both Worlds : Colour and B&W at the same time!
The skills needed to take good black and white photos are quite different from colour, as it is often the colour that attracts your eye to a particular picture, whereas with black and white, all you have are different levels of brightness. The skill that needs to be learned is to see the world in black and white.
I mentioned above that it's a good idea to shoot in colour and convert to monochrome later, however having the camera show you how a monochrome image might look can assist you in seeing in black and white. There is a solution though.
If your camera has the ability to store both RAW and JPEG files simultaneously, then you can use this option to have the camera record a colour and a black and white version of the image. Select "RAW+JPEG", and then set the camera to shoot in monochrome. The JPEG will appear as a black and white image, however because the RAW file contains the unprocessed data from the image sensor, this actually still contains all the colour information, and you can use this as the basis of your black and white conversion once you are back at your computer.
And just in case anyone thinks that doing the conversion on the computer is 'cheating' in some way, and that it is 'purer' to have the camera take the black and white (yes some people really think this way!), remember that the image sensor in every digital camera is a colour device. Selecting monochrome on the camera simply tells the camera to carry out a rather crude conversion from colour to monochrome before storing the image on your card. So isn't it better that you as the creative genius behind the image, have some say in this process? |
Conversion from colour to black & white will be looked at it more detail in the next section.
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Photographs
This is a site about photography so I'm sure you are expecting to see plenty of pictures.
For now, why not take a peek at the flickr galleries belonging to the two authors of this site.
Colin's Flickr Page
Phil's Flickr Page
"Black and white photography is a perfect lie. We must not let colour destroy this image"
- Patrick Summerfield
"Colour is everything, black and white is more"
- Dominic Rouse
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