![]() He often works on the ëedges' of the limitations of light and equipment, introducing blur and camera shake into his photos. London based fashion and advertising photographer Andrew Farrington has a brilliant portfolio of black and white images. His images of buddhist monks are timeless and evocative. Travel photographer David DuChemin has a beautiful portfolio of black and white photos taken in Nepal and Tibet. (See the Ladakh and Classic India galleries) His subjects include Winston Churchill and Ernest Hemmingway. ![]() Karsh was the pre-eminent portrait photographer of his time. Bob Carlos ClarkeĪn English erotic photographer who sadly comitted suicide a few years ago, Bob Carlos Clarke was recognised as a brilliant commercial and erotic photographer. MartÌn ChambiĪ Peruvian photographer based in Cusco who photographed the beautiful Andean landscapes and the indigenous people of the Sacred Valley of the Incas. ![]() Adams was a master of black and white printing processes and pioneered the zone system, a method of analysing exposure to produce high quality black and white prints. Perhaps the world's best known black and white landscape photographer, Ansel Adams is remembered for his beautiful photos of the American landscape. Here are some of my favourite black and white photographers, past and present: Ansel Adams Some Great Black and White PhotographersĪll photographers need inspiration. Black and white nudes are timeless, and by removing colour, help elevate the subject matter from something that is potentially smutty by treating the naked body as an art form.ħ. Nudes are recognised as one of the oldest subjects for artists and photographers. Black and white emphasises the shapes of their wings and the textures of the background. I photographed these ornaments in a church in Guatemala. The flatness of this type of light hides texture. The worse light for photographing texture is harsh midday light. The soft light of an overcast day can also bring out texture, though it may need some help in post processing by techniques such as increasing contrast. Low raking light, typical of the golden hour of light near sunrise and sunset, makes texture stand out sharply. Texture is affected by the lighting conditions. Anything old normally has lots of texture, and textures look great in black and white. Imagine the wall of an old building, or rusty metal, or weathered wood. To help you learn to see in black and white, we've included both colour and black and white photos in all our examples. The photo will be displayed in black and white on the camera's LCD screen, and you'll have all the colour information in the RAW file for your conversion afterwards. With practice, your vision will become very accurate.Ī good tip for digital SLR users is to shoot in the RAW format (which you should do for the best quality colour to black and white conversions anyway) but set the Picture Style (this is Canon's term - check your instruction manual if you have another brand of camera) to a black and white mode. Pre-visualise the result after you've post-processed (or developed and printed if you use film) the image using your favourite techniques, such as adding textures and toning. The successful black and photographer recognizes this, and searches out subject matter that looks better in black and white.Īs you're evaluating your subject, try and imagine how it will look in black and white. The rich colours are an intrinsic part of the image's power. Think of Steve McCurry's famous Afghan Girl portrait, for example. There are certain types of photo that rely on colour for impact. It's important to understand that not all subjects are suitable for black and white. The key to successful black and white photography is learning to see the world in monochrome. Black and white is an interpretation of reality. A photographer shooting in black and white has to learn how to use all these elements to create a memorable image.Īnother reason is that color photography, much of it mediocre, is so abundant that black and white makes a refreshing change.įrom an artistic viewpoint color depicts reality. It takes attention away from the visual building blocks of a great photo texture, tonal contrast, shape, form and lighting. So why does black and white photography command such acclaim? One reason is that colour is a distraction. Modern black and white photography at it's best is art, and many photographers regard it as the purest form of photography. But black and white photography didn't die off, instead it flourished. Then, in 1936, the invention of kodachrome gave colour photography to the world. In the early days of photography, photographers had no choice but to shoot in black and white, as it was the only available medium.
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