Black and White Photography

[Andrew Khan]

This is something that I have been thinking about for the past 18 weeks, when one of my friends showed me there pictures they took in NC, that were all in B-W. It seems B-W does not work with all photographs, but only some. What determines whether B-W will look good on a photo, or not? How can you judge this?

[Sean-Mcr]

Utterly subjective. Street shots and urban scenes lend themselves very well to black and white. As does anything depicting decay. Generally, You wouldn't want a flock of flamingos in bw (that's a given) or a fire work display (for the most part)

Tougher with portraits, depends on the mood you're trying to capture.

[symes]

Check the top of this section...Martin has a VERY LONG but VERY informative place that talks all about the wonders of his B&W photography...

Cheers,

[Robert_Lay]

This is something that I have been thinking about for the past 18 weeks, when one of my friends showed me there pictures they took in NC, that were all in B-W. It seems B-W does not work with all photographs, but only some. What determines whether B-W will look good on a photo, or not? How can you judge this?


I'm a little puzzled as to why you say that B-W does not work with all photographs. I guess that may or may not be true, but most of all I'm curious as to why you think so, because you gave no clue.

Also very interesting is the question of what determines whether B-W will work good on a photo or not and how one can make a judgement about that.

I think I can give an opinion on some of these areas, but you may be a little surprised.
Until I started shooting color as a hobby, I never really wondered about any of those questions. The reason that I didn't wonder about them was that for many years I shot only B&W film and did all my own developing of film and all my own darkroom work. It never even occurred to me that there would be scenes that work well with B&W and other scenes that work better with color. None of that ever entered my head because color was not an option. I did not have a color enlarger; I did not have the tanks in which people were developing color prints; and I did not feel that I had the money to spend on the paper and chemistry for color printing. There were a few additional gadgets for the color darkroom that I did not have, such as a color analyzer, and most of all, I did not have anyone to advise me on color - I would have to learn it all in isolation.

As a result, I worked very hard at making good monochrome prints for anything that I felt like shooting and printing. In fact, I never did acquire a bias for specific types of scenes that would be good in B&W. So far as I can remember, that just never came up. I felt then and feel the same today, that what makes a good print in B&W is really an issue of lighting and composition - being B&W had nothing to do with it.

[david814]

As a result, I worked very hard at making good monochrome prints for anything that I felt like shooting and printing. In fact, I never did acquire a bias for specific types of scenes that would be good in B&W. So far as I can remember, that just never came up. I felt then and feel the same today, that what makes a good print in B&W is really an issue of lighting and composition - being B&W had nothing to do with it.


I agree wholeheartedly with Robert. Photography is black and white, colors are just another kind of gray.

David

[chrishunt]

Color is another tool that can be used to give your photo the look that you're trying to achieve. I often look at my photos and try and see if color adds anything to the image, if not, then I try the image in black and white. I am a huge fan of color, so I usually keep the color, however, there are some images where the color really had nothing to do with the photo and B&W suited it better.

Just my opinion, some others might feel the same.

[Bob_A]

B&W can work for anything, it just depends on the skill of the photographer. As for portraits, just look at the following:

http://www.oswaldgallery.com/s.nl/sc.2/category.27/.f

Better yet, go to a library and view some good books with his images. Truly amazing.