Why I love black and white photography
It would not be a lie to say that black and white photography is sentimental to me since my journey to becoming the photographer I am today started with a roll of black and white film and a camera. I actually shot film for the first 10 or so years of being a photographer, only moving to digital around 7 years ago. During that time, I shot mainly black and white both due to the ease of developing black and white film (a topic for another day) and due to the depth of emotion you can capture in the absence of color.
A unique moment: connection between the subject and photographer.
I’ve talked before on here about the importance of light and how the skill of a photographer is in how to control and work with it. But today I am going to talk about another part of what makes a photo have impact: emotion. In capturing the emotion of a scene, you tell the story behind it, not just what your subject is feeling, but how you view the scene as well. As a photographer, your mentality and opinion towards the moment influence the story told by the photograph.
Now, how does this relate to black and white photography? Well, there is a simplicity in black and white photography that I think allows for the emotion of a photo to come across more clearly. With color images there are so many ways to distract the eye and create an emotion through the use of color; which is an art itself. However, in the absence of that color there is only contrast and light. This allows you to focus in on the emotion in the scene and how you view it. I think this really helps us as photographers as well, it removes some of the distractions we can use to hide mistakes and that helps us to build our skills. I truly do think that black and white photography, I would place it up there in similar importance to having your work printed.
The nostalgia factor
I will admit here that I am sentimental about black and white photography, I’ve been shooting it so long, it would be hard not to be. I think that is honestly one of the joys of it though, black and white photos are nostalgic for many people. But I think that only using black and white photos for nostalgia is a waste of a brilliant type of media. I think that the nostalgia is simply a part of the charm of black and white.
All of the photos that I’ve added to this blog post are my favorite black and white images from the past 6 months or so. I can remember the stories behind all of these. The location, weather, emotion; and I hope that in looking at these images you can as well. I truly do love black and white photography, and that probably comes across in my writing. I think I’ll let the photos speak for themselves from here on though. They can tell their own stories.
