Black and White Photography Still a Dynamic Medium

By Mark Hoerrner

Photography is a medium of the eye in which a single image can evoke strong emotions. Advances in color technology have given birth to a host of color options, allowing the photographer to craft scintillating photographs that show the diversity of modern life.

Black-and-white photography, however, strips away the interpretive colors and leads the viewer into a new area, one where "personal expression and interpretation" reign, says photographer and writer Guy Tal.

The key to creating impactful images with black-and-white photography requires the photographer to compose pictures in a completely different way, Tal writes in an article for Outdoor Photographer magazine.

"The most important skill in visualizing a black-and-white image is the ability to imagine a color scene as a collection of tones," Tal writes. "In the absence of color, objects are rendered in tones that can be thought of as degrees of brightness. For example, a red flower and green grass may be rendered in the same tone and appear as the same shade of gray."

The skill is in the photography, not the capture system, Tal writes. This alludes to the fact that when compared side by side, film and digital cameras are on an equal footing for capturing the initial image. The only difference really happens during the development and processing phase. Regardless of the capture medium, it is advisable to take the image into a digital processing program for image manipulation.

"The most common adjustment is overall brightness and contrast," Tal says. "I find it easiest to achieve both by using Photoshop’s Levels dialog. This function generates a histogram of tones found in the image and allows you to set the white and black points."

Using a digital process also allows greater flexibility when dealing with scanned color images. Tal uses Photoshop’s Channel Mixer feature to convert photos to monochrome.

"It also lets you visually vary the amount of filtration and blend effect of multiple filters," he writes. "Check the Monochrome box and move the sliders in the direction of the color effects you want to apply. Photoshop actually varies the ratio of values from each of the RGB channels and calculates the resulting degree of brightness.

Tal notes that many photographers use chemical effects in the darkroom such a sepia, selenium or platinum which creates a variety of tonal options. The computer programs will do this, too, when converting from color to black-and-white. This, he writes, gives the photographer more options on developing a better, more varied picture because the RGB channels allow for greater control rather than if the picture had been converted to Grayscale.

For more information on Guy Tal and his pictures, visit www.scenicwild.com.