I've been thinking about this question for a long time. I love black and white photography (though I cannot say I am prolific at it), and I've been wondering why I love it so much.
For starters, black & white photography ≠ shooting monochrome from your dSLR. I never had the privilege of shooting B&W film back in the day, having my interest in B&W piqued only when I was fully into digital. B&W digital photography is a whole different ballgame, with the post-processing also taking up as important part of the process as the shooting.
It is important to see which images work well in B&W after a conversion. When you shoot B&W digital photography, you shoot in colour, then go for a monochrome conversion in Photoshop. Regarding conversion technique, there is a particular website that I have found very informative and detailed when it comes to this.
The page can be found by clicking on these three words.
(Disclaimer: I am not the author, not a contributor, of the page. I just happened to find it very useful.)
1) There is a certain tonality achieved
There is just something alluring, for me, about seeing an image with a lack of colour, everything brought across in various tones and shades of gray. I cannot profess to having obtained a palette of tones that will identify a work as being mine, but I'll say it is captivating all the same trying to achieve that.
It is said that many famous B&W photographers' works can be identified just by the tonal palette of a given piece. Some prefer large amounts of white, and others, drawing detail from the shadows; there is really no one right approach.
2) Colour no longer becomes a distraction
In this above picture, the background was really a mess of tungsten lights, blue, red, and cyan. Converting this image to B&W added a certain pop to the subject.
Sometimes in an image, there are many elements competing for attention solely based on their colour. For instance, there may be a huge blotch of red somewhere in the background, and though out of focus, it may render the viewer distracted from the actual subject.
(Hehe it also means you don't have to do precise colour correction :bsmilie: )
3) Texture, when captured properly, pops out at you
Not that texture doesn't pop in colour, just that when it's in B&W, somehow the shades of grey tend to render textures very pleasantly.
Ah, enough of my reasons. I wanna hear from some of the photogs here on their views on B&W photography. Feel free to contribute with photos too!
For starters, black & white photography ≠ shooting monochrome from your dSLR. I never had the privilege of shooting B&W film back in the day, having my interest in B&W piqued only when I was fully into digital. B&W digital photography is a whole different ballgame, with the post-processing also taking up as important part of the process as the shooting.
It is important to see which images work well in B&W after a conversion. When you shoot B&W digital photography, you shoot in colour, then go for a monochrome conversion in Photoshop. Regarding conversion technique, there is a particular website that I have found very informative and detailed when it comes to this.
The page can be found by clicking on these three words.
(Disclaimer: I am not the author, not a contributor, of the page. I just happened to find it very useful.)
1) There is a certain tonality achieved
There is just something alluring, for me, about seeing an image with a lack of colour, everything brought across in various tones and shades of gray. I cannot profess to having obtained a palette of tones that will identify a work as being mine, but I'll say it is captivating all the same trying to achieve that.
It is said that many famous B&W photographers' works can be identified just by the tonal palette of a given piece. Some prefer large amounts of white, and others, drawing detail from the shadows; there is really no one right approach.
2) Colour no longer becomes a distraction
In this above picture, the background was really a mess of tungsten lights, blue, red, and cyan. Converting this image to B&W added a certain pop to the subject.
Sometimes in an image, there are many elements competing for attention solely based on their colour. For instance, there may be a huge blotch of red somewhere in the background, and though out of focus, it may render the viewer distracted from the actual subject.
(Hehe it also means you don't have to do precise colour correction :bsmilie: )
3) Texture, when captured properly, pops out at you
Not that texture doesn't pop in colour, just that when it's in B&W, somehow the shades of grey tend to render textures very pleasantly.
Ah, enough of my reasons. I wanna hear from some of the photogs here on their views on B&W photography. Feel free to contribute with photos too!