Black & White or Color?
Some folks prefer black and white photos and some prefer the saturation of color. I have ALWAYS been drawn to black & white photographs. I lived with my grandmother growing up, and I would frequently show her pictures that I took in black and white and she would always scoff at me 'WHERE IS THE COLOR?!'.
While I think this one does work with both edits, I prefer the color version.
When I was younger I didn't know the reasoning behind why I preferred black & white images, but now that I'm a real life photographer, I'm CLEARLY an expert ;) A Canadian Photojournalist named Ted Grant once said this: “When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls!” My favorite thing to shoot is emotion. As a result of this, I find that many times I prefer to take color out of the equation when I feel like it might be taking away from that emotion. But! When color is able to ADD to that emotion, I want to keep it there, help it pop, and make it the star of the show.
“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black & white, you photograph their souls.”
As soon as I watched this moment unfold, I knew it would be black & white because of the emotion it conveys.
There will be times when I'm editing an image an I'll cycle back and forth between color and black and white. It's not always an obvious answer for me, because sometimes it can look great in both editing styles, OR it can elicit a very different emotion based on whether or not I've chosen to keep the color or take it away. So sometimes, I'll keep it in both styles!
The colors here greatly add to the image, so I would never think to convert this one!
One's editing style is unique to each individual photographer. If you give the same image to 10 different photographers and asked them to edit it (how to crop it, what to highlight, to keep in color {and just how saturated with color it will be} or convert to black and white), you'll likely end up with ten fairly different results.
When I'm editing, I tend to go through the following steps to help me to determine if I'm going to keep the image as color or convert it to black & white:
- I always shoot in color and then use a post processing software to convert the photos. If the camera is told to shoot in black and white, but you later realize the color would have added to it, it'll be too late. Always convert it after the fact!
- I look to capture a well exposed image that has a great deal of contrast. If it's a dark photo, the black & white edit will appear moody and with too many shadows. If it's too bright and doesn't offer a lot of contrasting tones, the image can appear more like a muted grey rather than a crisp, high contrast black & white photo that immediately draws you in.
- I cycle between both edits. Does the color in the image add to or take away from the story being told in the image? If it doesn't add to it, will it elicit a stronger emotional response if it was taken it away? If yes, then I know which one to keep!
This is the moment my husband and daughter said goodbye as we dropped her off at college. Because of the emotion behind this, I prefer the black and white.
I've calmed down a little bit when it comes to black and white, as I used to find that I would convert roughly 50% of images to black and white (I REALLY.LOVE.EMOTION!!!) I now deliver probably 10-15% of images to black and white, and try to keep a great deal in color, whenever I'm able to.
Share with me your thoughts! Which do you find that you prefer, color or black & white?