Ever since the start of the digital camera revolution about 15 years ago, many photographers started to shoot less in black and white. And back in the days of film a lensman had to make a conscious decision whether to load black and white or color film into his camera.
Nowadays, most digital cameras shoot in color, which means if you want to have your pictures appear in black and white then you first need to convert your images using a post processing program on a computer. This extra step I believe may be what causes photographers to overlook or forego black and white all together and stick to shooting mainly just color digital now.
I know personally that I often just view my digital photos in color and forget the fact that they might look even nicer in black and white. You can think of it this way; you used to only have a choice of either color or black and white when shooting with film, but (with digital) you now have the choice of getting both color and black and white out of the same frame. And if you look at it that way, then your options have increased.
So with that thought in mind, I decided to revisit a series of Bangkok street photos I had shot a number of years ago which I had entitled Urban Lines.
At that time I wanted to give my photos a bit of an edgier look so I did some post processing on them that made them a bit more gritty looking. What I had applied to them is known as tone mapping. But what I did back then was take only one approach to post processing these photographs and I had overlooked the black and white option completely. But just recently I thought that if I convert them to black and white (instead of tone mapping them) that I could create a bit of that edge I was looking for, and without having to give them any sort of a stylized look in the process.
Following are 5 of the photos from the Urban Lines series showing the original post processed images followed by the new versions I recently created in black and white, but without the tone mapped effect:
© Marc Schultz – All Rights Reserved
© Marc Schultz – All Rights Reserved
© Marc Schultz – All Rights Reserved
© Marc Schultz – All Rights Reserved
© Marc Schultz – All Rights Reserved
© Marc Schultz – All Rights Reserved
© Marc Schultz – All Rights Reserved
© Marc Schultz – All Rights Reserved
© Marc Schultz – All Rights Reserved
© Marc Schultz – All Rights Reserved
After looking at these photos you may decide that you still like the original color, tone mapped images better, that you prefer the new black and white versions instead, or perhaps that you don’t like any of them at all.
But the take away I am trying to offer you here is this: Why not try revisiting some of your older digital photos, convert them to black and white, and see how they look? You might be pleasantly surprised with the results and you certainly have nothing to lose. And if the pictures have good texture, a high contrast of colors, or interesting lighting to begin with, then you probably will have a winner once you do convert them. So give it a try!
Next week I’ll be posting an extensive 2 part article about the in-depth process of lens calibration. So check back next week or simply subscribe to this blog by clicking on the “Follow” button in the lower right corner of your browser window to get notifications on the newest articles emailed to you as soon as they are posted.