Black and White Photography: Everything about Black and White Photography
Black and white photography
is just like a history lesson that brings you back to the very basics
of the art of photography, when pictures were first taken without color
information.
These pictures were taken with films which soon became a 'specialist'
genre with the introduction of colour film and processing these black
and white negatives became more and more costly and unprofitable for
local businesses.
Currently the popularisation of digital editing of pictures using
sophisticated software such as Photoshop made it possible to reproduce
the effects of a monochrome photo by deriving it from an actual
full-colour digital camera rather than for a specified camera that is
dedicated to taking such images.
The advantage is you can tweak and alter your color original to any
mixture of "developing" style that you want without additional cost, and
still have the original full colour image available!
Currently, the monochrome function in most cameras still exist, but the
more popular way to render such images is still to take a picture in
colour, and to convert it into black and white using photo editing
software, the more popular among photographers being Adobe Photoshop and
Adobe Lightroom.
Black and white photography concentrates on the contrast that is in the
picture which is thus the main focus of the picture in the absence on
colours and focus on contrast and textures.
In monochrome photography, it does not mean the photo contains only
black and white hues, but also the millions of shades of grey between
solid pure black and pure white. As such the grey in the picture would
present a totally different feel to the picture than in colour.
An effective B&W photo with a wide range of midtones and greys allow
the showcasing of contrast and textures between different objects in
the picture, and thus injects a large dose of realism into your picture
as it could have more feel than with a picture without as much contrast
in the picture - commonly known as a 'flat' photo.
Developing the eye to 'see' mono in a coloured world is critical as the
scene loses colour information and replaced by grey hues, you must be
able to identify which color shade will provide the best contrast when
converted into a black and white photo.
Shadows plays an important part in the picture as it defines shape,
structure, and feel of the photograph all by itself. Learning how to
read shadows is critical for effective black and white photos.
Remember the coloured filter used during the film days? Photographers
before use coloured filters to add contrast and alter the intensity of
certain color spectrum on a film negative.
For example, yellow filter would render certain scenes a bit lighter
while more solid colours such as navy blue or brown would result in a
more solid grey or even black. In digital black and white, the same
effect can be adjusted using the individual color channels available
when converting a colored photo to a black and white photo.
Black and White Photography
