Black and White Challenge Ideas

Black and white photography is not new. It was the first type of photography due to technical limitations but it continues to be a great medium.

While color tries to recreate the exact image that’s there, black and white photography moves in a different direction. It focuses much more on other visual effects such as framing, tone, texture, shape, and lines. In some ways, it’s harder than color because you can’t use color to define your shot. All of the sudden that loud yellow that dominated the shot earlier is a light gray and you’ll have to find another way to draw attention to your subject.

If you look at the image below, you’ll see that being in black and white actually really helps the image pop. The bottle and the shadow on the wall stand out crisply as the focus points and no color gets in the way of that.

Black and white of bottle with shadow

Consider the two following photos. It’s the same photo but one is converted to black and white. It turns out that the colors play a very strong role in guiding the eye in this one. All the trees in the background set an interesting backdrop but it’s the yellow bench that pops. When turning to black and white, all the sudden the bench goes away and the lines of the trees start to become the dominant feature in the photo.

Yellow bench in a park with trees behind it.Black and white version of the yellow bench in the park.

The challenge is to take a photo that still has a strong subject where the contrast, framing and the lines in the shot really highlight the subject. Don’t let this one be a portrait. We might do a black and white portrait later in the series here.

Get out there and Take a Photo!

Take the Challenge at – 2018-03-18- Black and White Challenge

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