Black and white photography was the first form of capturing still photographs just as it was the first form for motion pictures. It wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century that color photography first became available. In today’s world, color photography is available to everyone. So, with the world being visualized in brilliant color, why then would anyone wish to remove such illumination and use black and white?
This question is slightly difficult to answer as it brings up another question; when to take a black and white photo or when to remove color from a photo using an editing program such as Photoshop.
To simplify is the answer to the above question. This process allows for removal of distracting elements from a photograph, much like blurring the background or enhancing the frame of a photo.
So now we know the why, which has led us to the when, of black-and-white photography, lets look at the three main situations where we might de-saturate (i.e. remove color from) a photo.
# In portraiture - In color, a close-up picture of a person reveals all kinds of distracting details of their face ” blemishes, a red nose, uneven skin tones, and so on. Black-and-white photography strips out these details, and this makes it easier for the viewer to concentrate on what the photo reveals about the persons life or personality, which is what portraiture is all about.
# In abstract fine art photography
In Abstract Fine Art Photography, a photographers subject of choice is patterns and shapes. If color photography is used, it takes away from the importance of the subject matter, while black and white allows the artists vision to remain clear.
In addition, photographers of Abstract Fine Art will often increase the contrast of a photo after removing the color. This is commonly done with the assistance of an editing program.
# Whenever the photo is more or less monochromatic anyway
This final category is something of a catchall. While the main use of black-and-white is to remove something distracting from a photo, its also a good idea to try converting a photo to black-and-white when the photo really has few bright colors anyway. Another way of looking at this is to say that just as color is distracting, a washed-out lack of color is also somewhat distracting.
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