I’m becoming a fan of B&W photography! It pushes you to look at the light… the textures… the contrasts of a scene… otherwise you may as well stay at home and photograph a lamp shade… it’ll be about as interesting! As someone who photographs almost solely wildlife and landscapes, I’ll admit that a moving B&W image of a person is pretty tough to beat… maybe I’ll venture into that realm someday. For now… I have a quick study in a few things I look for when capturing a B&W landscape shot… (1) Texture, (2) Drama, (3) Contrast and (4) Light. And sometimes… just sometimes… a shot works well in both B&W and color. Scroll to the end for that one. Hope you enjoy!
Texture
Cutting Up the Field. Remove the boring brown color of this scene and the not very colorful sunset, and the eye is drawn instead to the texture of the lines of cropped wheat in this field… making for something far more pleasant to look at.
Drama
Rolling Thunder. Foreboding clouds… light clipping the scene in different spots… and a lonely cluster of dilapidated trees in the distance… Definitely a shot made better in B&W. The dirty color of the hills and grey clouds were quite boring in the full color version as I setup to take the shot. Sometimes you have to see in B&W though… maybe dogs got it right after all!
Contrast
Ted’s Garage. The contrast of the black & white and some gritty textures made this shot for me… a 7 image panorama of an old garage sign! One day, this garage sign was obviously new… and I often wonder when I see a scene like this… what happened?
The Light of Day. The contrast of the clouds gave me nervous jitters as I drove down a back country road… not for any other reason than I just wanted to find a scene in time to try and do a small bit of justice to the light illuminating the clouds above me. The contrast of the light and dark aspects of the scene made a good B&W study for me.
Light
“Light of Palouse”. Light in the clouds, contrast and the soft rays breaking through in patches… great ingredients for a B&W 6 shot panorama… and the rolling green hills and trees in the distance also make this a picturesque, serene color image.
I was back in the Palouse this past weekend and captured another batch of interesting shots (for me at least)! Will post them soon!
Liking the B&W very much!
Thanks Leonie! It’s a fun style to pursue… so I think there’ll be more to come
. Hope the Bartlett’s are well!
These are unbelievable. My favorite is the cutting up of the field
Thanks Francesca! I like that one too… the multi-direction of the grain is quite cool. Haven’t seen that too often!