After my last post on black and white photography, I’ve been looking at two related articles that appeared on craftandvison.com.
The first by Guy Tal looks at the ability that some photographers have in being able to see in black and white when looking for and planning their shots. Tal says that in black and white photography obtaining the photograph we actually want is about transforming the visual elements of a scene into an imagined final picture. This is the process of imagining or visualising, “the ultimate appearance of the photograph we plan to make”.
He takes us through the mindset of taking monochrome images that “extend our expressive powers” using some of his own images as examples. I have always been fortunate that I am able to visualise in my mind the final outcome of my monochrome images, and reading Guy’s post has made me realise that I’m not weird.
You can read his article here
THE STEPS
Olympus E-30
Another article worth reading is one written by Piet Van Den Eynde which is also on craftandvision.com. He discusses 10 ways in which the photographer can make better monochrome images, both in-camera and during processing.
I generally skip through these type of articles on the web about “10 ways to do this…” and “10 ways to do that…”, but Van Den Eynde does some great articles for the Fujilove website and I have a couple of his e-books published through craftandvision.com.
The actual tips are all fairly basic, but even so are worth reading just in case you haven’t heard of all the methods. His tip “It’s hip to be square” is already one I use in my black and white photography for probably over 80% of my images.
You can read the article here
THE BELL
Nikon P300
sensored-view.com 