Let's Hear From You: Choosing Between Black & White or Color
Today's post is a question for photographers: When presenting an image to the world, how do you decide between color or black & white?
In the stock photography venue making this decision is easy for me - I do all my images in color knowing that the buyer can covert them to black & white on their own if they want. But when it comes to portraits and/or fine art photos, I frequently have a difficult time deciding.
How do you decide? Do you go into the editing of an image already knowing or do you make the decision on the fly? I'd love to hear other photographer's thought process on the subject.
Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/160 second, f/4.5, ISO 100
9 Comments:
I too have a very hard time deciding. Sometimes I think a photo looks better in B&W because of the tones represented, but in the end it is subjective. When dealing with a client situation, I usually present them both options so they can decide. But, when the final image is my choice, I usually create both and just rely on whichever one just jumps out at me as better. No science to it :)
90% of my b&w conversions come on the fly. Many times I'll try it out and it just doesn't work so the image ends up in color. Every now and then I'll shoot something and I will know right away that it will look great in b&w or sepia. I don't tjink you can't force the magic to happen, but you can push it in the right direction.
One way I look at photographs is to group them into two categories - photos that lead with form/composition and photos that lead with color. For me, if a photo leads with form and the color isn't really contributing to the image, I convert it to black and white.
For me, black and white imagery quickly comes to mind when the main subject has a predominance of black or white, usually white, which is in contrast to the surrounding tonality. I love the question.
Totally on the fly. There's no measuring stick you can use to determine if a photo makes a good b/w -- it's all "gut feeling". With that said, I typically won't go b/w on photos that have very dominant colors. If the colors are so-so and the photo isn't too busy, it usually ends up looking better in b/w.
I think that both forms have their place. Usually, before pressing the shutter, I know how my photo is going to end. If the scene attracts me for its color, it ends up in color. If the scene attracts me for its form and textures, it gets converted to B&W. Color is another layer of information: if it ads something, stays. If not, it's not needed there.
I guess saying "totally on the fly" wasn't completely true. Obviously, when I shoot b/w film the results are going to be b/w. But with digital, I'll sometimes see a scene and know that I'll be converting to b/w in post. Usually these are scenes with little color and/or strong contrasts. But again, it's still sort of a "gut feeling" to know when such a scene presents itself.
I kind of go along with what Mike and Antonio state above. If the color isn't adding anything, but there is great contrast and /or tones, I'll often give it a run in b/w and see if the image jumps out to me. Also it's nice if having the black/white creates a certain mood that is appropriate for the image.
I'm no expert, but if I'm considering B&W I tend to look for photographs with simple subjects that tend to be more complicated in colour - I love the way b & w changes the importance towards form, tone and texture.
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