A Life in Black & White

This is the part of photography that i find fascinating. To shoot in Black&White or Colour. As the history of photography has developed through the years we've witnessed the change to colour images which is now standard on all cameras but has the cycle gone full circle???  Many people including myself have a mental image of early photographs (ie) around the early 1900's being black & white. This was mainly because the cost to make an image in colour was so high. The common mistake we make is that we just believe it had not been invented around Pre/World War I when in fact the earliest printed colour photo was thought of in 1855 by a chap named James Clerk Maxwell and his technique was used to produce the 1st permanant colour photo in 1861. As the years rolled on the processing technique was made cheaper and in the mid 1930's Kodak introduced the "Kodachrome" colour film which was available to the general public. From that moment on taking photographs had changed for good. Kodak is still known to most these days and has been right at the forefront of photography.


There were still some photographers through the years who dispite having colour readly available to them stood by the original concept of black & white. Photographers like Tom Baril, Henry Cartier Bresson and my personal favourite Brassai all mainly shot black & white. Brassai's work for me is what i love best. Black&White photos of Paris by night. Using street lights after the rain had soaked the pebbled streets to maximize the light in his images. Fantastic. I could look at his work all day but don't let my love for black & white put you off shooting in colour. Everyone has their own personal favourite. I sometimes think the reason i prefere B&W to colour is simply because the human eye sees in colour (unless you're extremely unfortunate) and it's what i'm used to. The tones and shading in B&W just give you a different feel and i think you can drawl more emotion from a B&W image than a colour one. I still have to shoot colour in my job for the local newspaper as that is the format required but when i'm doing shots for my own portfolio i tend to favour B&W.


Below are a few examples of the difference you can get when altering your image to Black & White from Colour..

When you see strawberries the first thing that you think of is a vibrant red as pictured above. A nice image and what you'd come to expect.

But look what happens to the same image when changed to B&W.

And again B&W but this time changing the brightness levels down to give it a darker mood.

For me the darker image is my favourite and it's mainly for a few reasons.

1.The mood has changed in the picture

2.There's a nicer sheen/glare off the top of the strawberries

and most importantly

3.You're first reaction to the photo is " Why is this picture not in colour?? You can't get the true impact of the strawberries!!! You wouldn't usually see a B&W photo of strawberries.

That is EXACTLY the type of reaction "I" as a photographer am looking for. If i can get even 1 person to talk about my photo (even if it's being pass-remarkable) then i'm doing something right. Photographers would be nothing without people commenting on their work. You're never going to get 100% compliments on your work but sometimes you'll need to mix things up to get a reaction.

If you are in anyway interested in Black & White photography then i would encourage you to check out the link below. Remember, night photography makes you think a lot more as you need to use light to your advantage. I think you'll appreciate Brassai's work from the early days.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&cp=9&gs_id=y&xhr=t&q=brassai+photography&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&biw=1280&bih=683&wrapid=tljp1342805058973016&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=R5QJUPIcpsbRBZqwsMkK