The Brilliance of Black and White
The Brilliance of Black and White
Black and white goes to the very essence of photography. Even though the first color photography was created in the mid-1800’s (black and white had already been around for more than 30 years), it was not widely used in advertising or journalism until the 1970’s. Newspapers used only black and white photos until the mid-70’s with USA Today becoming the first newspaper to print entirely in color starting in 1982.
Today, black and white photography is making a big come back. It’s most prevalent in the fine art world where traditional silver printing processes add to the romantic and mystery of the fine art print. Although color photography dominates the commercial world, black and white applications in advertising and on web sites are seen as compelling and somewhat arresting.
Why? In today’s saturated-color manipulated-image world, black and white feels real.
Fundamentally, it draws your attention to highlight and shadow detail as well as contrast. In so doing, the absence of color brings the viewer’s attention to expression. Lines and shapes, tonality and texture, create a different narrative.
Beyond telling a story with either one photograph or a series of images, many photographers want to achieve a “Look at that!” reaction from the viewer. A black and white photo can do that as it stands in contrast to the much larger universe of color images. But, another important goal is to get the view to stop, study, and contemplate an image. In that way, the black and white photo has the potential to become more memorable.
“Retro” is also a popular buzz word. Perhaps it’s nostalgia or a yearning for a perceived simpler, more romantic time. Maybe it’s just “cool.” For whatever reason, style keeps reaching back for inspiration.
Architectural design, especially interior design and furniture, is heavily influenced by Mid-Century style. I’ve encountered this during both exterior photography and, as an interiors photographer, in both residential architectural photography as well as commercial photography.
Portrait photography, including photo headshots and business professional headshots, draw from the film noir era. Headshots for business also take inspiration from the classic Hollywood glamour photos where iconic photographers played extensively with light and shadow, both on the subject’s face, and the background.
Today, we mimic those techniques in both how we light portrait subjects and how we process architectural photography. Whether it’s women’s professional headshots or photo headshots of men, I use numerous reflectors, diffusers, and special soft boxes to enhance my portraits.
Processing architectural photos is much more than just converting them to gray scale. I use special apps to specify tonality. Because of my extensive past history of shooting photos using film, I also can apply effects based on the types of film I used to shoot with.
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Steve Silverman
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