I always like to read and listen to opinions about photography because it never fails I’ll learn something along the way. I’ve noticed there always seems to be an active discussions going on somewhere about what makes good B&W photos.
Below I’ve jotted down opinions from just such a conversation on Flickr (with the extra BS cut out) made in response to a question of: “What kind of photos are better in B&W?”
– If the photo is more about structures, lines etc, it often looks better in black and white.
– If a photo just doesn’t really appeal, just convert it to B&W, and you might surprise yourself.
– High contrast landscapes (e.g. lots of shadows & highlights) work well as B&W.
– If the frame I’m going to capture does not have enough colors to differentiate, then for me it is a good prospect for a B&W photo!
– I find I like better in b/w are the ones with unidirectional light.
– One thing that may help you is to shoot nothing but black and white for a week, you will begin to see shapes and forms in your work and the things your looking at.
– A good B&W picture is one shot with B&W in mind. If you look at the world in B&W you will shoot good B&W.
– 1) High Variance in Contrast and 2) Interesting Shapes and Contours would always look interesting in Black and White
– B&W is often used for evoking emotions, or the starkness of contrast to evoke emotion, or to give the photo a simplicity which allows the viewer to focus in on the subject.
– To me, B/W adds a layer of abstraction as compared to a color photograph of the same scene It helps make it less real and ideally the photographer extracts and shows more of the essence of the subject.
– Black and white is appealing because of the texture, the difference in tones, the leading line to the interesting feature on the hill. It works for all those things, and works in colour for complete different reasons. Sometimes we’re dazzled by colour because it’s beautiful for the colour’s sake, but the subject matter gets lost. So, the black and white one evokes the mood better for me, I feel like I’m there,while the colour one gives me a sense of fantasy. Both are equally desirable.
The above comments were made by a variety of people with varying levels of photographic experience. I don’t think there is just one answer to this question.
Perhaps it’s better to say the best B&W photo is the one you personally like, for whatever reasons. There are things that work well in general in B&W but it still comes back to personal preferences.
One thing that got my attention. I usually shoot in color and convert to B&W but I think I’ll pick a month to only shoot in B&W. I believe this could be helpful for visualization of underling forms and shapes that leads to superior compositions.
Any opinions or suggestions on this?