Classic black and white photography is alive and kicking. After years of madly saturated photos many photographers go back to black and white photography.
With the reduction to grey values the photos allow the person looking at the photos to bring his own visual experience in and create his own colour version in his mind. The absence of colour does not mean a restriction but rather more freedom in the creation of your images. Colour can distract the attention to your theme and become the theme itself. Sunsets and flowers are two subjects that demand a different approach when shot in black and white. With modern editing software like Lightroom 4 the transfer from colour to back and white is easy done. Lightroom comes with a wide range of black and white presets that work very well, I´ve used one of them for the change.
Other programs like Nik Silver Efex Pro allow you to play with endless variations of black and white photos.
Both programs even give you the option to add a film grain look to your photos.
The photos above where shot yesterday morning during a walk on Reenroe beach, Ballinskellig. Bright light and the low sun showed the pattern in the sand and waves. The graphic patterns of surfaces were always a theme for photographers since the beginning of photography due to its temporary character.
I recommend to take the photos in colour and transfer to black and white in the post editing. The colour file is simply bigger compared to the grey scale of the black and white file.
If you shoot raw the file will be colour anyway, only the preview in your camera will be black and white.
All photos Canon 5dmkII and 50mm macro lens.
©Michael Herrmann 2012
