Is there anything better than a monochrome silver gelatin print on film? Should we even try to get close to that with digital? Black and white is overused or underutilized in many genres, and it’s time for a change.
When color first appeared, it was considered crass. Black and white has dominated photography for about 130 years. But by the 1980s, it had lost its crown and became a niche piece of art, reserved for those venturing into a darkroom for press or fine art photography.
Even now in the digital age, black and white is mainly used to give the photo a more artistic feel. This has led to the mistaken belief of many beginners that the value of a photograph is increased simply by removing color; It’s not. Saturation doesn’t instantly turn a bad photo into a good one.
Monochrome in itself is great for street photography. However, color still dominates in most genres. Only rarely do we see wildlife photography captured in black and white, and wedding photographers probably have a few token images scattered throughout their portfolio. Despite Ansel Adams’ mastery of the landscape in black and white, it’s mostly a predominantly color realm, where the scenes are bathed in the golden lights of sunsets and sunrises.
Recently, there has been a resurgence in film photography. This is partly a rejection of modern technology and a corresponding desire to return to less sterile practices. What’s more, that’s because digital can’t exactly match the great look of film. As a result, people enter the darkroom again – or perhaps for the first time – and discover the sheer joy of seeing a monochrome image materialize in the growing tray under the ghostly red light of safe light. Besides feeling more exposed to the history of photography, they felt that additional work was devoted to developing film prints that yielded the same intrinsic quality that could not be achieved with the digital process. . There is certainly a greater sense of accomplishment.
Many people use digital technology to pretend that a photo isn’t something. There are hundreds of Lightroom presets and Photoshop actions that are supposed to emulate different types of movies. Although they mimic its tone and grain curve, they do not achieve the true essence of the film. I realize that this is my subjective opinion, but I find it ridiculous. It seems that some photographers are embarrassed about their black and white images being digital and try to hide them behind an attempt to look analog. I believe it is not necessary. Consider using movie presets as a starting point, but forget what they’re trying to mimic. Instead, tweak them until you find a compelling and unique result that can proudly stand on its own.
I believe that while photography should be influenced by what has come before, as with all arts, it should also be celebrated for its unique attributes and not pretending to be a thing. something is not it. After all, we’re not trying to make film photos look digital, so why should we try it another way? We might consider the digital’s inability to accurately reproduce the look and feel of the film as a good thing. Instead, black and white digital photography can and should be recognized for its own merits. After all, digital black and white images can look great.
Of course, black and white photography is limited to grayscales from black to white. It is a form of reduction, removing the distracting element, color, from an image. The human brain likes that simplicity. Moreover, this is another method of displaying the world in a way that is not normally seen by the viewer, which is one of the most important methods to make our images attractive.
Only practice teaches us how to “see in black and white”. By observing the areas of shadows, midtones and strong highlights in the frame, we perceive the different luminances of the world around us, thereby discovering how to separate subjects from their backgrounds . A good method to learn this is to switch your camera to black and white. The camera preview will give you a good idea of what the scene looks like before it is captured. Take a moment for each shot, review its images and histograms, and evaluate why it worked.
The camera’s software produces some good black and white results. I always imagine a talented technician sitting in a lab in Japan adjusting the in-camera processing settings to produce the best possible images. A good quality camera allows us to make global changes in brightness and contrast. However, if we want to apply throttling settings locally, and possibly so, then we have to look at specialized software.
I recommend avoiding black and white conversions in Lightroom and ACR. This is a subjective opinion, but I found the black and white settings in Adobe’s raw development tools to be lacking. On1 Photo Raw does a great job, as does Capture One, but Nik Silver Efex Pro still has the edge.
As I said at the beginning, black and white is used for limited purposes, especially fine art. But there’s no reason we shouldn’t use it in other genres. However, we can learn from fine art and use its techniques and styles with other genres of photography.
Look for contrasts other than light, such as simplicity and complexity, striking simplicity and detail, difference in size, static and dynamic, etc. Strong graphic elements work well and highlighting elements of extreme black and white processing can give good results. Unlike color, it’s not only perfectly acceptable when there are large areas of pure black and white in a monochrome image, but it also adds impact.
With color photography, pushing adjustments can lead to unpleasant, gaudy results. This is especially noticeable for skin tones, which, if wrong, will make the subject look unwell as our mind always tries to expect healthy people to have skin tones within certain parameters. . However, exaggerating tones and contrast in black and white was easy on our eyes because we represented the scene in an unrealistic way.
Finally, learn from the best. I don’t just mean photographers like Cartier-Bresson and Adams. Watch black and white films by filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock and Carol Reed. Portraits of melancholy moods work especially well in black and white, and they are the masters at it.
Do you shoot in black and white in less conventional genres? It would be great to hear about your experiences and maybe see some of your photos in the comments. Or is it something you want to experiment with and learn more about? Maybe you’re a fan of movie presets and disagree with what I’m suggesting. Do you get as good results from any of the presets as you do from movies? It would also be great to hear from you.
In this article, I’ve only scratched the surface, but I hope you’ll dig deeper into the subject and discover the delights of white and black.
