Black and White Photography

As photographers, we have the ability to show people how we see something in our minds the same way a painter mixes colors and uses brush strokes to show other people their vision.

One of the most beautiful things I like about photography is the ability to show something in black and white. If people complain about someone Photoshopping a photograph because it takes away the "naturalness" of a photograph, I say, nothing is more unnatural than black and white photography.

We do not see the world in black and white unless you are color blind. But most people do not complain when someone shows a black and white photograph but complains when someone Photoshops a photo.

As I mentioned in my previous entry on whether to Photoshop or not. My view is that as long as the photo is not for news or to present a fact, then I don't have a problem with someone using Photoshop to adjust or enhance a photo. But when someone uses Photoshop in journalism, that's a big no no for me.

Black and white photography for me is just another way to express a vision. In some ways, black and white photography is harder to do than color photography. In color photography, sometimes the color brings the whole picture together. The composition may not be as good, but if you capture a beautiful color, the whole photograph just works.

In black and white photography, you have to deal with contrast, shadows, highlights and composition. Sometimes texture comes into play as well.

The hard part about black and white photography is that you have to train yourself to look at contrast. You may not see it right away, but it is there.

When I take a black and white photo, I actually capture it in color first. Then I convert it to black and white in Photoshop. The reason I do this is because if I decide I wanted the photo to be colored instead, I don't have to go back and re-shoot the photo.

In short, it is easier to remove the color in a colored photograph than to put color in a black and white photo.

Here are some photos I took in color and later converted in to black and white.

Here is the original photo.

I took this photo when I went snowshoeing in Mount Seymour, B.C. I was wearing sunglasses so I couldn't really see the exposure properly.

This photo looks black and white but it isn't. The sun was quite bright and shooting with the sun nearly in front of you turned the trees into shadows. The white snow also reflected a lot of light making it look like a black and white photo.

I didn't really like this photo because it was too dark. But I loved how the footprints in the snow makes your eyes travel through the photograph. So I decided to see if I can do something to it to make it better.

Since there's really no color info in the photo above. I decided to convert it into a black and white photo. I just used Picasa's black and white setting to convert it and adjusted brightness and contrast. I also cropped the photo to 5x8 aspect ratio to make it look more like a landscape photo.

Here's the result.


Here's another photo at Mount Seymour while I really like the way the footprint (I have foot print fetish) is set on the snow. But again, the photo looks dark and has no color info.

Using Picasa again, I set it to black and white and adjusted brightness and contrast.

Here's one where I like how the canopy of trees are lined up. But my shot of the leaves weren't really that sharp. That's due to the point and shoot camera I'm using and the sensor isn't big enough to capture tiny details.

Also, the color seems a little bland. Time for some black and white effect.

Here is the photo in black and white. Doesn't it look better?

With the colored photo, your eyes tend to linger on the leaves on top. But with the black and white photo, your eyes are drawn down to the road where it looks more like looking through a tunnel trying to look for the light at the end.

I did this one in Photoshop so I adjusted levels, brightness and contrast.

In this photo of a house, I got attracted to it because of how the sunlight fell on the sidings. The lines on the sidings plus the lines of light and shadows made it a good subject for a photo.

This in itself is good enough, but I wanted to see how it looks in black and white.

Here I was just testing how the photo will look if I set channels mixer in Photoshop. What I did is I selected Red as the output channel and checked the box at the bottom where it said monochrome.

I adjusted some curves and and set hue to make it look a little more brown than pure black and white. This was the result.

I think it looks good if not better than the colored version.


Here's a photo that I thought was hopeless. It was too dark, crooked and because of the haze, there wasn't much contrast.

But thanks to Photoshop, here's the result!

After looking at the photo for a while and playing with it in black and white. I found that I can make the photo look like one of those old black and white photos you see on restaurants sometimes.

I converted the photo to black and white. You can either use the monochrome setting in channel mixer or just move the hue slider completely to the left. See what looks best.

I adjusted contrast, curves and brightness to get the effect I want. The haze actually worked in my favor because it made the photo look older. The small sensor of my camera also worked to my advantage because of the noise it creates, it made the photo look a bit worn and dusty.

So that is how I do black and white photos. Sometimes I just see the photo as black and white, sometimes I salvage some bad ones to see if they can be made better. Only your vision and creativity limits you. Don't be afraid to try. There is no right or wrong way of doing things. Only the end result matters. And it only really matters if you like it.

Happy shooting!