There was once a time of great photographers, whose body of work was created entirely (or nearly so) in black and white. Giants of the medium including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Dorothea Lange, George Hurrell, Edward Weston, and O. Winston Link created some of the most noteworthy and resonant images of the 20th century without recourse to color. It’s true that color film didn’t become available until 1935, when some of these people were well into their careers. But even after color’s advent, many artists have preferred, and continue to favor, the classic simplicity of black and white.
Eschewing color forces the photographer to rely for effect entirely on line, light, contrast, and composition, and in that way B&W is a great teaching tool for both aspiring and veteran artists. Partly for that reason, and partly for a challenge, I’ve been eager for some time to start making monochrome images.
I took the plunge (as it were) inadvertently last year, when sun glare on a very bright morning washed the color out of a bunch of surfing photos I took in Cayucos — including the one at the top of this article. While I loved the effect I got with some of those images, though, I didn’t really revisit the idea of intentionally working with black and white until a few weeks ago, when I began taking some color photos in my back catalog and desaturating them — like this photo of the great arch at the mouth of the harbor on Naxos Island.
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That effort was turbocharged when I learned of — and promptly bought — a fantastic plugin called Silver Efex by DxO, which works in both Lightroom and Photoshop (as well as some other platforms). Whether you’re starting with a color image, or one that is already black and white, Silver Efex gives you a simple workflow that helps you to select from a great variety of different simulated film stocks and digital effects to get exactly the image you want.
(And no, I don’t get any “consideration” for promoting Silver Efex; I’m confident DxO has no idea I exist. Anyone who would choose to market their products through this blog would surely need their head examined.)
Anyway, while Silver Efex is great, it’s certainly not essential for getting your black and white game on. And its workflow isn’t necessarily suited to every picture. Below, for instance, is an image I worked up without DxO’s plugin from a phone camera photo I took some years ago.
Because the resolution wasn’t the best, and the original wasn’t in RAW, I had to filter it and generally dingle with it a fair bit in order to get the results I wanted. Trying to integrate it with Silver Efex would have been an unnecessary duplication of effort.
Now that I’m having a blast playing with black and white, I’m pretty pumped about the idea of finding a competition where I can enter some B&W images for judging. Unfortunately, the next contest from CCPS (Central Coast Photo Society) is “to submit 3 photos that represent ‘Spring’. Flowers, birds and bees – or anything that’s ‘springy’.”
So… anyone up for some monochrome tulips?
Anyone?
Ronald Crittenden 