As far as I can remember, I’ve never taken a photograph in black and white, so I decided that it was high time to set my camera setting to monochrome, and see if I could take any decent shots without colour information. I admit that I am biased towards colour, especially for nature subjects, but I decided to give it a shot and experiment with the challenging conditions of black-white photography.
I did not carry out any post processing of the images beside cropping some of them to enhance detail. I used the built-in monochrome setting, but I am not familiar with the mechanics of how the camera turns the photo into black and white, such as a dedicated sensor (unlikely), in-camera software processing (likely), or elf magic (unknown).
Light is important for photography in general, but I realized that light for black and white photos was even more so. Without colour cues, a viewer has to discern the elements of a photo based on the variations of dark to light, which appears to be more difficult, at least for certain subjects.
It was a strange day weather-wise. About 20-30% of the sky was covered in dark clouds while the rest was a combination of upper atmosphere haze and bright blue sunny skies. This contrast was ideal for certain shots but not others.
As I quickly found out, nature shots were slightly more difficult in black and white than urban shots not just because of the light conditions but also the repetitive textures and forms of the natural environment. I will delve deeper into my experiences with black and white nature shots in another publication. Thank you for visiting.
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