Back in the day, monochromatic imagery was the only way to shoot. It gives appeal to photos by making them seem timeless, nostaligic, and in some great photos that I’ve seen on Instagram – historic. There was a time on Instagram that all I would share was black and white. Why you ask? I felt that colors distracted in my images and so in doing so, allowed many aspects of my images to take the main focus. Light, tone, and texture became the main focus. It also helped me train my eye to how light would fall on my subjects. I also liked high contrasted images and black and white helped me achieve that.
Photography is all about light. As a street photographer, I would chase the light that the sun would throw. How the sun would cast its shadows across urbanscapes and people. In black and white images, the light itself tends to stand out more and becomes the supporting actor at times.
Tone is a bit more vague, but what I am referring to is the way a B&W photo renders the various shades and hues of color as grayscale. If processed correctly, the gradations in the gray tones can be quite beautiful and help to accentuate the lines and shapes of your subject(s) in ways that are not always as apparent with color photography.
Texture is fairly straightforward, but what may not be as obvious is that what makes the texture of your subject “pop” in B&W photography is the interplay of light and tone mentioned above. While we notice textures all the time in our daily lives, seeing them through B&W imagery really let’s us focus on the tactile qualities of the texture, albeit in a visual manner.
As you can see, these three qualities are in conjunction with one another and work together to make black and white photography the beautiful art form that it is.
Let’s get to some tips for you to create some awesome black and white images with your smart phone. I will show you examples of my work and some of the apps I used to create the effects. Some are as simple as adding a Hipstamatic film and others are using Snapseed (iOS - Android) and making more post edits.
By editing in color first, you can get the most of the detail work out of the way in terms of brightness, contrast, etc. Even adjusting the saturation level of the colors helps to render more accurate gray tones in the final image. After switching to black and white, I find that I only need to make the most subtle adjustments to the contrast and brightness to come up with an image I am happy with. The reason for the extra adjustments is that color adds a natural contrast to an image that can be lost in grayscale when you have less colors to play off each other.
Black and white photography relies heavily on the contrast (or for others the lack of) between black and white tones in the image. Keep in mind this when editing and consider all of your adjustments in light and how they will affect the contrast for your photos. It is your personal take on it though. For instance my personal aesthetics is that high contrast is way more awesome.
Vignettes work in both color and monochrome, but it is much more effective in my opinion in black and white photography especially in the black vignette. This helps to bring out the contrasting light and dark tones in images much like a matte when framing prints.
There are many camera apps that does vignettes but only a few that I’ve found work well. My favorite of all the apps is, Noir Photo. It allows for adjusting the position of the center point and the level of falloff. Snapseed offers a good center balance but again, it doesn’t offer the flexibility of Noir Photo.
Photography is all about light. As a street photographer, I would chase the light that the sun would throw. How the sun would cast its shadows across urbanscapes and people. In black and white images, the light itself tends to stand out more and becomes the supporting actor at times.
Tone is a bit more vague, but what I am referring to is the way a B&W photo renders the various shades and hues of color as grayscale. If processed correctly, the gradations in the gray tones can be quite beautiful and help to accentuate the lines and shapes of your subject(s) in ways that are not always as apparent with color photography.
Texture is fairly straightforward, but what may not be as obvious is that what makes the texture of your subject “pop” in B&W photography is the interplay of light and tone mentioned above. While we notice textures all the time in our daily lives, seeing them through B&W imagery really let’s us focus on the tactile qualities of the texture, albeit in a visual manner.
As you can see, these three qualities are in conjunction with one another and work together to make black and white photography the beautiful art form that it is.
Let’s get to some tips for you to create some awesome black and white images with your smart phone. I will show you examples of my work and some of the apps I used to create the effects. Some are as simple as adding a Hipstamatic film and others are using Snapseed (iOS - Android) and making more post edits.
1. Color First!
By editing in color first, you can get the most of the detail work out of the way in terms of brightness, contrast, etc. Even adjusting the saturation level of the colors helps to render more accurate gray tones in the final image. After switching to black and white, I find that I only need to make the most subtle adjustments to the contrast and brightness to come up with an image I am happy with. The reason for the extra adjustments is that color adds a natural contrast to an image that can be lost in grayscale when you have less colors to play off each other.
2. Its All About That Contrast Baby
Black and white photography relies heavily on the contrast (or for others the lack of) between black and white tones in the image. Keep in mind this when editing and consider all of your adjustments in light and how they will affect the contrast for your photos. It is your personal take on it though. For instance my personal aesthetics is that high contrast is way more awesome.
3. Vignettes, Vignettes, Vignettes
Vignettes work in both color and monochrome, but it is much more effective in my opinion in black and white photography especially in the black vignette. This helps to bring out the contrasting light and dark tones in images much like a matte when framing prints.
There are many camera apps that does vignettes but only a few that I’ve found work well. My favorite of all the apps is, Noir Photo. It allows for adjusting the position of the center point and the level of falloff. Snapseed offers a good center balance but again, it doesn’t offer the flexibility of Noir Photo.
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