Black and White photography.

Some of my favourite photography is in black and white. I like creating my own black and white images. But why?? I tried to think why I like it so much and I couldn't put my finger on exactly why I choose to create black and white images or why I like black and white photography at all. The more I thought, the less I could come up with an answer. So I thought why do we use black and white photography at all?

I've always thought that producing images in black and white is appealing on a number of factors. I tend to use black and white images in sequence photography or when covering an event as I feel it adds to the theme of the collection to create more of a narrative. I have said before, black and white is common for being 'simpler'. People often use the term in 'black and white' to simplify something but this completely contrasts the idea of black and white photography. 

One of the main factors of creating mono images is tones. As stated above, people use the term to say that something is either black or white. But in reality there are so many different tones of black and of white that   join the two colours together in the middle. Black and white photography highlights this point exactly. So many different shades and tones are created from different colours, shadows and textures that it makes the image a lot more interesting to look at. Once the distraction of 'colour' has been removed from an image, we can suddenly get a bigger sense of detailing. 

I found a lovely website, a blog type site by a man named Pete Williams called 'PhotographyMad'. The opening sub-title of a post caught my eye:

"Black and White Photography offers a unique perspective on many subjects. Removing colour brings out the hidden details, texures and shapes." - Pete Williams, PhotographyMad.com

The article was entitled '5 Tips for Black and White photography' and explained all about how black and white photography emphasizes the shape, form and texture of the subject.

I also read a post on a website which gave the same comments as the site above. The post was by Darren Rowse and can be found here. It shows the opinion of others on the beauty of black and white photography. And I agree with all of them.

The factor that I completely overlooked was the versatility of black and white images, as stated in the first point on that article. The fact that you can use it for every scene and type of photography as well as in all lighting conditions. This is where I can relate most as when photographing gigs, the lighting can be horrific. And while competing as well with high ISO useage, black and white photography can be a god send. I also find it works really well because coloured lighting can be a pain to work with too and i find that the red lights are the worst. In colour, the images can be flat as the 'red' takes over the image but removing this can create a better overall shot.

So ow I'm a clearer on why we use black and white photography and why I like using it and looking at it so much. Its great to get other peoples opinions on the useage of black and white photography too and I can take this research on board when deciding whether to use black and white photography in the future.