Seeing in Black and White

We see the world that God has made, in color - the vibrancy of a fresh strawberry, magnificence of a sunset, the splendor of a mountain range.

But there are times, when a picture is better captured in black & white - and it does take a bit of practice to see what works or not. Or you could put your camera setting to B&W (shoot in RAW, so that you won't lose all the color info), and you can check and see what works, and what doesn't.

Here are a few examples (not exhaustive of course!)- of both before and after shots, at least what I think works, or at least where B&W is a much stronger image.

1.PLAY ON ANGLES
 

 B&W works here, because it emphasizes the contrasts in the picture, as well as it emphasizes on the angles of the escalators intersecting, as well as the balconies. There is a bit of crop, which improves the composition of the picture. This works well, when you are indoors, look around at the ceiling, the roof of a mall.

2.REPETITION  & PATTERNS

I was at a Mall with my son, and we kinda went the wrong way. The picture on the left, is actually the ceiling decoration - which I though would be interesting due to the repetition of the "strings" as well as varying heights of the glass beads would make it interesting. The raw picture, looks exceeding boring, and blend. But with a some Lightroom post processing - it really brings out the details, and makes it into a different picture altogether, which I've entitled as "Frozen Rain".

3.DRAMATIC SKIES

I liked the composition of this picture, but the colors were just terrible, with the murky waters, and blend buildings. Converting to B&W, you can emphasize on instead the shape of the buildings, against a dramatic sky. Try B&W, when you like the composition, not the colors are bland.

4.TEXTURE

Here's an example where B&W brings out the texture of the door, and makes it a much more interesting picture. 

5. URBAN DECAY5.Urban Decay

Urban decay is a good candidate for B&W or Sepia tones. It removes the bland colors, and forces the eye to focus on the composition, the repeating patterns, the texture of the picture.

SOFTWARE
You can use lots of different softwares - some free, some costs $$.
After trying out a few, I've found that I really like using Lightroom (costs $$) to post process. From importing the RAW files into libraries, cropping, converting to B&W, increasing the exposure/contrasts/saturation of the picture, is all quite easily done - in one software. And it is quite a powerful tool - for minor cleaning up the picture, which again takes a bit of practice to see which levers does what. Lightroom 4 beta is current out for free trial, until end of March. so download it, give it a test run. It does take a little to get used to (like all software), but the more you use it, and familiarize yourself with it, the more powerful it is.

So look around, see in B&W, look out for repetition, interesting architecture, urban decay, texture, or dramatic scenes, and keep shooting. Share your posts!

Happy Shooting.
Soo Sing