Why Black and White?

For me, black and white pho­tog­ra­phy has nev­er been an effect or styl­is­tic option. It is a way of under­stand­ing light, struc­ture, atmos­phere, and inter­pre­ta­tion. Over time, I have come to realise that mono­chrome pho­tog­ra­phy is not about remov­ing colour, but about see­ing differently.

I’m prob­a­bly the wrong can­di­date to be answer­ing this ques­tion. My first response would be a defen­sive, ​“Why not?” or, if not that, an affirm­ing, ​“You should be doing it.” I was nev­er con­vert­ed to work­ing in black and white; it con­vert­ed me. Since that day as a col­lege stu­dent in Mersey­side, I have known lit­tle else. I was enrolled as a stu­dent of graph­ic design and was informed that any future role in such an indus­try would entail using images, so an under­stand­ing of the pho­to­graph­ic process would be essen­tial and enlightening.

I wasn’t sim­ply giv­en free rein to snap away at any­thing I chose but was tasked with a project to explore images that con­veyed ver­ti­cal empha­sis. Off I went alone with this per­ceived con­straint in mind, and, with­in a few hours, I was devel­op­ing my first roll of film and soon after plac­ing the neg­a­tive in an enlarg­er. This was long before the notion of dig­i­tal imag­ing had been con­sid­ered, and stu­dents were only offered black and white neg­a­tive film as a raw mate­r­i­al. By this time in the ear­ly eight­ies, colour was of course every­where. For those of us who can remem­ber, Bonus Print reward­ed you with a free roll of colour neg­a­tive film if you chose to use their devel­op­ing and print ser­vice, which was deliv­ered to you along with your prints.

Dis­cov­er­ing monochrome

Some­thing changed in me on that day, and it was the junc­ture in my life when pho­tog­ra­phy became part of me at the ten­der age of six­teen. Sev­er­al of my peers soon shunned the ​‘old-style’ black and white neg­a­tive and invest­ed in the full-colour Bonus Print option, but I was tak­en by it. At the time, as a young­ster, I did not real­ly know why. I was for­tu­nate to be a stu­dent in a col­lege that boast­ed a won­der­ful library, very well stocked in pho­tog­ra­phy books. On one wet win­ter morn­ing, I was brows­ing the shelves, and my eyes set upon a deep green book spine dis­play­ing the title Exam­ples: The Mak­ing of Forty Pho­tographs by Ansel Adams. I slid the book from the shelf and the cov­er image was ​“Moon­rise, Her­nan­dez.” I stood and stared, then retreat­ed to a chair in a qui­et cor­ner. The sky in the pho­to­graph was sol­id black, sur­round­ing the moon, and the small hous­es in the fore­ground glint­ed in the last light of the set­ting sun. It was this pho­to­graph that ini­ti­at­ed a life­long jour­ney of explor­ing every tone between pure white and pure black.

I was lucky, I sup­pose. I nev­er made the tran­si­tion from colour to black and white. My first thirsty explo­rations in pho­tog­ra­phy were firm­ly embed­ded in mono­chrome, with no sense of loss in the absence of colour. Even at that age, every land­scape I set my eyes on was being trans­lat­ed into a rich and diverse vari­ety of sump­tu­ous tones. I am ful­ly aware that I was gift­ed this pas­sion ear­ly on, which enables me to grasp why pho­tog­ra­phers evolv­ing in the oppo­site direc­tion — from colour to black and white — can find the evo­lu­tion more chal­leng­ing. To ask my younger self what it was about black and white that trans­fixed me would have pos­si­bly been an unan­swer­able ques­tion. But as mat­u­ra­tion has tak­en place, I can now assim­i­late what I was expe­ri­enc­ing — and still do.

See­ing light differently

For any of you who know me, I can often be heard sim­pli­fy­ing pho­tog­ra­phy as an endeav­our where we sim­ply col­lect reflect­ed light. Black and white pho­tog­ra­phy has noth­ing else to be con­cerned with oth­er than the lim­it­less qual­i­ty and essence of light. When I was por­ing over the pages of Ansel Adams’s books, what struck me was the way light in the pho­tographs was pre­sent­ed. At no time did any of the pho­tographs feel defi­cient or bereft of colour. On the con­trary, they sparkled with a real­ism of a world in which colour was not need­ed. In fact, the pres­ence of colour in any of the images that inspired me would have been detri­men­tal — mere­ly serv­ing as a distraction.

When a pho­tog­ra­ph­er elects to delve into black and white, the point at which they first face crit­i­cal deci­sions is the moment the image tran­si­tions from colour to mono­chrome. As the vibran­cy of colour infor­ma­tion is removed, they enter a world where the choic­es before them are vast, and the famil­iar colour ref­er­ences no longer exist. It is here where you, as the pho­tog­ra­ph­er, can decide the des­ti­na­tion and nar­ra­tive of the image — and most often, where the pho­tog­ra­ph­er los­es their way. It is for this rea­son that there have been, and con­tin­ue to be, many image edit­ing plug-ins pro­vid­ing an array of mono­chrome ​‘looks’ to choose from which, to be frank, I think are large­ly dread­ful. I can­not think of any oth­er art form where the artist gath­ers the ingre­di­ents for their work and then hands it over to some­one else to cre­ate — worse still, being able to iden­ti­fy the plug-in that was employed!

There­in lies the chal­lenge. It is often assumed that, with­out the need to con­cern our­selves with colour, black and white should be a rel­a­tive­ly sim­ple pur­suit. It is not. Some­times it is even con­sid­ered a fall­back posi­tion if the orig­i­nal colour file is not deliv­er­ing the goods. Black and white pho­tog­ra­phy is a craft that demands skills which must be honed over time, and not just when we arrive at our com­put­er, but even before we lift the cam­era out from its bag. We must begin by under­stand­ing light and how that alone is being reflect­ed back at us. It is those infi­nite­ly vary­ing lev­els of light that become our infi­nite blend of tones of grey. Under­stand­ing light is the cor­ner­stone and foun­da­tion of any pho­tog­ra­ph­er, but in par­tic­u­lar, the mono­chrome photographer.

Pre­vi­su­al­i­sa­tion in monochrome

The word pre­vi­su­al­i­sa­tion is often cast around in pho­to­graph­ic cir­cles and is a skill that black and white mas­ters have relied upon for decades. If we begin to see our sub­ject as rhythms, forms, tex­tures, shad­ows, and light, then we begin to dis­count the colours we are pre­sent­ed with. The very notion of this results in us con­tin­u­ing the prac­tice back at the com­put­er, har­ness­ing every­thing in our com­po­si­tion where light has been care­ful­ly con­sid­ered. The con­verse of this is pur­su­ing the act of colour pho­tog­ra­phy in the hope that it may result in a fine black and white pho­to­graph. It is a begin­ning-to-end jour­ney, and noth­ing is left to chance.

Inter­pre­ta­tion and expression

Com­pared to work­ing in colour, the inter­pre­tive pow­er of mono­chrome pho­tog­ra­phy is unpar­al­leled. Because colour is so very ubiq­ui­tous in our world, and we are sur­round­ed by colour images every day, there lies a lim­i­ta­tion as to how far you can devi­ate from that real­i­ty. Of course, colours can be inten­si­fied or desat­u­rat­ed, but the sub­ject often gives the game away, result­ing in an image that may gain a raised eye­brow from the view­er. The same is not the case for black and white images. With the glo­ri­ous absence of colour, the mal­leabil­i­ty of tones and expres­sion is almost limitless.

Fur­ther­more, black and white pho­tog­ra­phy empha­sizes form, com­po­si­tion, and tex­ture with height­ened clar­i­ty. In the absence of colour, the viewer’s atten­tion is direct­ed toward the play of light and shad­ow, the struc­ture of shapes, and the sub­tle gra­da­tions of tone. This approach refines the photographer’s skill in con­trol­ling dynam­ic range and mas­ter­ing light­ing con­di­tions. Artis­tic con­trol over these ele­ments allows for expres­sive sto­ry­telling, cre­at­ing mood and atmos­phere that can be haunt­ing, joy­ful, con­tem­pla­tive, or dramatic.

One of the main rea­sons for the con­tin­ued high regard of black and white is its his­tor­i­cal and artis­tic sig­nif­i­cance. For many decades, film-based black and white pho­tog­ra­phy was the pri­ma­ry medi­um avail­able, and it became asso­ci­at­ed with the fine arts. The craft of devel­op­ing film and print­ing in dark­rooms har­nessed a deep con­nec­tion between the artist and the work, high­light­ing tech­ni­cal prowess and patience. This his­tor­i­cal con­text gives black and white pho­tographs a sense of authen­tic­i­ty and crafts­man­ship that many appre­ci­ate as an essen­tial aspect of artis­tic expres­sion. Even today, dig­i­tal tools allow for the con­ver­sion of colour images into mono­chrome, but the tra­di­tion­al process­es still appeal to gal­leries and collectors.

Learn­ing to see

If you have nev­er allowed your­self the oppor­tu­ni­ty to explore black and white pho­tog­ra­phy, it is not too late and you cer­tain­ly should. I will not state here that it will be a seam­less jour­ney with eas­i­ly achiev­able results, but the rewards gained as you move for­ward will fur­nish you with a high­er degree of pro­fi­cien­cy and dex­ter­i­ty that can be drawn upon in any genre of pho­tog­ra­phy. Be pre­pared to get lost in the avenues of grey and the accom­pa­ny­ing frus­tra­tions, but always bear in mind that what you are nur­tur­ing is the sin­gle most impor­tant ingre­di­ent in pho­tog­ra­phy: light.