LEARNING TO SEE IN BLACK & WHITE

At a time when colour film technology is at its
peak, and the world we live in is more colourful
than ever before, the idea of taking pictures in
black & white may seem a little strange.
Recently, however, mono has experienced
something of a renaissance. Not only is it widely
used for advertising and fashion, but more and
more enthusiast photographers are also
enjoying the benefits of shooting in black &
white. The main attraction of working in mono is
that by stripping colour from an image, you
divorce it from reality so photographs become a
more effective means of self-expression. Instead
of relying on realism and familiarity, they
become abstracts using patterns, textures and
the play of light and shade to gain appeal.
Photographs take on a different meaning, and
we can see into much more with the distraction
of colour taken away. This applies to all subjects,
be it portraits, landscape, still-life or architecture.
An additional benefit is that black & white is a
complete cycle. Your involvement with colour
photography usually ends the moment a roll of
exposed film is removed from your camera. But
in black & white, the creative process is only just
beginning at that point, because after
developing the film you then get to work in the
darkroom, printing the photograph according to
how you visualised it as the time.
This guide covers various topics, from learning
to see in black & white, choosing, using and
processing film and making your first print.
The biggest hurdle to overcome when shooting
black & white for the first time is understanding
how a colour scene will translate to black, white
and the numerous grey tones in-between.
A good way to learn initially is by shooting the
same scenes or subjects in black & white and
colour, so you can compare the two images and
note how certain colours record as grey tones.
Ideally, set up a shot or look for a scene that
contains a wide range of different colours – reds,
yellows, oranges, greens and blues. What you
learn will prove invaluable in the future as it will
help you visualise if a scene will work well in
black & white, and also what you may need to do
at both the taking stage and the printing stage
to ensure a successful image is produced.
For example, if you photograph red and green
objects together, their relative difference in
colour creates a contrast that makes each item
stand out clearly. In mono, however, red and
green records as similar grey tones so that
contrast is reduced, and the impact of the
photograph with it. When photographing
landscapes, you need to consider the way the
sky will record when you expose for the ground,
and how the many different shades of green in
the scene will translate. With still-lifes, you need
to pre-visualise how different objects will relate
to each other when converted to grey tones.
Self-expression
Of course, while this practical knowledge will be
of use, you shouldn’t live and die by it. One of
the great joys of black & white photography is
that it allows you to express your own creative
vision far more than colour can, so detailed
technical accuracy may be far less important to
you than the overall mood and feel of the image.
Also, while what you capture on the original
negative is important, 99 per cent of the time
it’s what you do with the image in the darkroom
that counts, because it’s in the printing that a
black & white photo really comes to life. You can
use different contrast grades of paper to control
the way highlights, shadows and mid-tones
relate to each other, for instance. You can lighten
or darken selective areas of the print to change
its tonal balance. You can also crop the image to
alter the composition, tone it and so on.