The beauty of monochrome……..
One of the most pleasing attributes of the new equipment I’m shooting is the quality of the monochrome images that come straight out of the camera! I started my career as a newspaper photojournalist and of course shot black and white film and made prints for the paper. I came to really enjoyed seeing and imaging in monochrome! Tones, and the graphic qualities of the image are much more important in monochrome. Color can become the main point of photograph that has great color, but monochrome must rely on other qualities of the image, and it is a good teacher!
Let me share a few black and white/monochrome images that I hope will prove the point!
In each image the central points design, lines, shapes, and tones, some of these may have been successful as color shots, but the design made each a strong monochrome composition. Below is one more monochrome conversion, and then the original color shot below it, yes sometimes color screams look at me!!!
………and now, ready for it?
Teach yourself to see more effectively by playing with the medium!
Blessings,
the pilgrim
This entry was posted on Friday, March 7th, 2014 at 6:34 pm
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Great post, nice image examples. Makes me want to do more B&W. Thanks Bill.
It really is a lot of fun!
It was said that black and white is the film of the artist and you have so wisely shown the potential for B&W in the digital context. That said, those folks who did not grow up learning to shoot with Tri-X (or other B&W emulsions) — and how to develop and print — are often of the mind that you just need to desaturate or switch to a B&W mode. Ah…for the days when a red filter put punch into an image!
I think it is a fundamental building block of developing an eye! You, I, and many others were fortunate to have tarted our learning long ago, when every photographer knew what Tri-X and Accufine were!
Geeez, “started”
Love this post, Bill. I would love to “see” and shoot more in B&W.
Set your X-T1 to film type bracket and make one monochrome, as you shoot more things you’ll get a better feel for what things work in monochrome, it will come faster than you think!
I’m very happy with my X-T1, but I’m surprised that it will only bracket +1 to -1. With todays dynamic range it seems that a +2 to -2 would be more appropriate. Do you bracket much? How are you working with this limited bracket range? Thanks.
I wish it allowed for a larger number of images, say 5 or 7 in addition to the ev range. Much more useful for HDR work. Perhaps Fuji will improve this in a firmware upgrade.
Yes see the explanation below!
I’m hoping that Fuji will write firmware to extend it to 7 or 9 stops, it would be simple, no hardware change needed, just some code, we can hope together!! Now short term I will do what Tony Sweet shared with me over the weekend, he used the exposure compensation dial + or – 3 stop to get a 7 stop bracket! If shot on a tripod, it works great!!! Even if you get slightly out of register, the software will fix it!
Wouldn’t that be nine shots? From -4 to +4. But not being able to handhold for hdr is a serious shortcoming IMO. I’ll see soon as I’m renting an X-T1 next week.
No, the Fuji just does 3 either side of medium.