Today, I’d like to share a little  about black & white photography. Monochrome photos are timeless. They add emotion and drama to a picture, and sometimes an otherwise rather boring photo can gain momentum and become quite capturing when turned into a black & white image.

Almost any scene can be turned into a black & white image, though when working with these kinds of photos, it’s good to know a few things about black & white photography to enhance the quality of your pictures significantly.

Contrast

Without color, the various shades of gray in black & white photography become rather prominent. Therefore, it becomes very important to make the subject of your photo stand out from the rest of the photo.

A light subject against a dark background, for example, will accomplish that, but including various shades of gray also can make a big difference, since they will add depth to your photo.

Shape & Form

Without color to guide and lead you through the photograph, shape and form become very important aspects of your black & white photography.

Composition is what will make or break your image, so you’ll have to pay close attention to how you arrange your subjects and how you include shapes and forms in your picture.

Pattern

Pay attention to patterns that you would otherwise overlook in color photography.

You can find interesting patterns everywhere, and black & white photography helps to capture those patterns, because attention is distracted through the dimension color adds to the picture.

Texture

Similar to patterns, in black & white photography the eye can focus much better on the textures displayed on the photo.

In color photography, textures easily can get lost in all the other information provided, but with black & white photography, special attention can be drawn to the texture of an image.

Some More Tips

Of course, black & white photography works especially well with portraits to capture the intricacies of faces and people, but there are a couple of other things that I still want to mention as well:

1. Always shoot in color, even though your camera might have a black & white setting. Using the integrated camera settings usually reduces the quality, and with computer softwares such as Photoshop you have a lot more options in post-processing than with a photo that has been taken in black & white already.
2. Shoot with low ISO. Unless, utilizing graininess to give your photos a special touch and texture, low ISO will reduce the grain, which means there is less noise in the picture to take away from the quality.
3. Consider the light conditions. Most professional photographers agree that shooting black & white photos works especially well on overcast, gloomy, dark days. So, instead of hiding near the fire place on a rainy day, get your camera out and start shooting photos that you’ll turn into black & white pieces of art!

 

Black & White Photography and Scrapbooking

Of course, I don’t need to mention here that black & white photography and scrapbooking work perfectly hand in hand. You can turn basically any given photo into a black & white image to use on your page, and that sometimes will give your layout the little extra that was just missing!

Tip:
You can utilize the black & white option for a photo especially when you want to use it with a certain kit but it just doesn’t match the color palette of the kit!