Week 1: Better Black & White Photography

Black and White photography harkens back to the old days before the advent of color film.  

Some say it has a more authentic feel, a certain nostalgia about it.

This summer, am teaching myself to be a better Black & White photographer. 

B&W does force one to concentrate on the composition of an image. Give more consideration to shapes, forms, lines, subject matter. and their interaction. Color can make a weak image with poor composition look decent. B&W will not let you get away with that.

Having researched multiple books on B&W, subscribing to the B&W photo magazine for several years, am now ready to give it a serious go. Even invested in a monchrome camera. 

Why would you buy a camera that only shoots black and white when you can shoot color photos then convert the color image to B&W on your computer?

Answer: sharpness and quality of image. 

A color camera takes a photo by splitting the light coming into the camera using a color filter, into red, blue and green, plus the light and dark (luminance). When converting a color image to B&W, you are only getting the luminance from the pixels that were not being used to capture color.

The B&W camera uses all of its pixels to capture luminance. None of the sensor's pixels are used to capture color. Thus giving you a sharper image with more shades of light and dark. 

Since the B&W camera can capture more light and dark information, it is more sensitive in capturing images in low light situations.

Enough talk, let shoot

First, trying a few macro shots while at my desk.

That was interesting, now something with architecture,

Sun Rays

The next night I walked around the local outlet mall, hoping to catch something interesting.  Being a week night, here were very few people in the mall. Was not able to take any street portraits as I would have liked.

 Next are a few images captured while learning the settings on the camera. Learning where to stand to eliminate reflections on glass...  or be aware of reflections and place them where you want.

I hope he doesn't think he is in the dressing room.

Clones...

As the sun was setting, the few remaining shoppers departed, as did I.

Well, that's concludes this week's first walk-about session.

We will see what next week brings. 

Ride safe my friends,

CCjon