Well I am pretty sure that black & white photography has never really gone out of fashion but digital photography has certainly rocked black & whites boat a bit. As far as film based photography is concerned the Black and White (B&W) process has always been a highly customisable and often a deeply personal process; can digital B&W be just as flexible?
Although I was once-upon-a-time a B&W specialist, digital lured me across to colour photography. However I did miss my B&W and like a lot of old school B&W film photographers I was not completely happy with digital B&W conversion at all times. Although I have managed to create some lovely B&W images using digital, it was just not quite the same thing. The type of control I was used having from using a combination of film & developer matched with B&W paper & paper developer, followed up on occasion with post processing toning... That's three steps each with their own variables; that's a lot of control!
The great thing about traditional B&W is the colour of the prints and the added depth that it provides the image with. Colour in B&W you say! Monochromatic would be a far better description.
About twelve months ago I set out on a location shoot with B&W shots in mind. I shot RAW, (that's digital negatives to the uninitiated) and got some very good shots. But when it came to doing the B&W digital conversion I became seduced by what I thought were the interesting muted colours I had come up with by shooting with daylight balance in open shade. I decided to keep the shots in colour! I worked on them for a couple of weeks off and on but I was never very happy with the results
Recently I picked up a retouching book called Skin which I had heard good things about. It has some very good tips and techniques for retouching skin but what I quickly realised was that some of these techniques could also be applied to B&W conversion in a way not too different from choosing Film, Developer, Paper and Toner combinations. I pulled out my archive of the shoot with Sarah that I was not happy with and got stuck back into the shots. In one evening I had the series of shots processed as they are now (top two rows above). They are now not so different from what I would expect from an afternoon in the darkroom.
It looks like Black and White Photography is back as strong as ever.
the right one of the last two pictures is really strong! great work!
ReplyDelete