What I love about black and white photography – thoughts about why B&W is uniquely different to colour, and some black and white photos from Tate Modern
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about black & white over the past year. My question isn’t: is it still relevant? It’s why do we still teach it the same way? We don’t encounter it the same way anymore.
Black & white was the first thing you learned in photography by necessity—color was hard to access—and when it became accessible, for the most part, it wasn’t designed for artists.
Today people take a completely different path. Digital color photography is the first thing people encounter. Usually on their phone and Maybe later with a camera. They may discover black & white when they take a film class.
Nearly every digital photographer has tried with a black and white film simulations or clicked the B&W button in Lightroom. But most did this without guidance. Digital photographers deserve to be taught Black & White and taught in a way that assumes they have already mastered photography.
You touched on a bunch of the topics, light as subject, texture, etc. But there is much more: What subjects work better in black & white? Which fail? If black & white is a choice, when to choose it and why? Different methods of converting photos taken with a color digital camera to black & white (in camera, film simulations, sliders, auto conversion buttons, etc.)
Look at community college catalogs and community photo school class listings. B&W is taught mostly through film. Digital is color.
I agree that I came to black and white the 'old way' through accessibility of film processing and printing and it's very different now - back then black and white and controlling the full process was much easier than colour.
I'm not sure I ever think about 'this would be better in black and white', but rather more intentionally and earlier on 'what do I want to say and how to convey it - what's the best approach? Colour, black and white, film or digital, high contrast or low, super saturated or subtle tones... for me the lack of choice, and appreciation of those choices, is the most important thing.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about black & white over the past year. My question isn’t: is it still relevant? It’s why do we still teach it the same way? We don’t encounter it the same way anymore.
Black & white was the first thing you learned in photography by necessity—color was hard to access—and when it became accessible, for the most part, it wasn’t designed for artists.
Today people take a completely different path. Digital color photography is the first thing people encounter. Usually on their phone and Maybe later with a camera. They may discover black & white when they take a film class.
Nearly every digital photographer has tried with a black and white film simulations or clicked the B&W button in Lightroom. But most did this without guidance. Digital photographers deserve to be taught Black & White and taught in a way that assumes they have already mastered photography.
You touched on a bunch of the topics, light as subject, texture, etc. But there is much more: What subjects work better in black & white? Which fail? If black & white is a choice, when to choose it and why? Different methods of converting photos taken with a color digital camera to black & white (in camera, film simulations, sliders, auto conversion buttons, etc.)
Look at community college catalogs and community photo school class listings. B&W is taught mostly through film. Digital is color.
I agree that I came to black and white the 'old way' through accessibility of film processing and printing and it's very different now - back then black and white and controlling the full process was much easier than colour.
I'm not sure I ever think about 'this would be better in black and white', but rather more intentionally and earlier on 'what do I want to say and how to convey it - what's the best approach? Colour, black and white, film or digital, high contrast or low, super saturated or subtle tones... for me the lack of choice, and appreciation of those choices, is the most important thing.