BLACK & WHITE TECHNIQUE (1)

Learning to visualise how colours translate to
grey tones is the first step in honing your
black & white technique, because it will help
you to understand what the final image may
look like when printed – and guide you towards
making certain decisions to influence that
final image.
However, there are other factors to consider
when taking pictures in black & white.

Metering and exposure
Perhaps the most important is how you expose a
black & white photograph, because that will
govern how much detail is recorded in the
negative and, consequently, how easy that
negative is to print.
The old adage is that when shooting in colour,
expose for the highlights, and when shooting in
black & white, expose for the shadows. This is
not a bad technique to adopt, but unless you
understand how camera meters work, it’s likely
to cause more harm than good.
A much simpler approach in normal lighting
conditions is to expose for a mid-tone, then let
everything else fall into place around it. This
should produce a negative that contains a full
range of detail and tone from white through to
black, which you can print on a normal grade of
paper – grade 2.
Most modern camera meters will naturally set
a mid-tone exposure in average lighting, as that
is what they are designed to do, so you could
simply go along with what your camera sets.
The other option is to take a spot reading from a
specific part of the scene that represents a midtone.
To visualise this, think of something that
has the same density as a mid-grey colour –
well-lit green grass, red brick and tarmac are
common examples. Alternatively, hold an 18 per
cent grey card, which is a perfect mid-tone, in
the same light as that falling on your subject,
and meter from it.
Where the lighting isn’t ‘average’ you need to
make a decision about how you wish to interpret
the scene and expose accordingly.
For example, if you photograph a tree against
bright sky, you need to decide if the mid-tones
and shadow areas are more important, or the
highlights. If you expose for a mid-tone, the
bright sky will be overexposed, and on a normal
print this would produce a high-key backlit
effect. However, if you expose for the sky, the
mid-tones and shadows will be underexposed,
and on a straight print the tree would come out
as a silhouette or near-silhouette.
If in doubt in situations like this, you can
always make a series of exposures then decide
later which interpretation you prefer and choose
the best negative for printing. You also have a
large degree of creative licence in the darkroom,
so if you change your mind it’s usually possible
to achieve the effect you want by using different
contrast grades of paper, varying the print
exposure and giving more or less exposure to
certain parts of the image.