Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Sony Diaries #966: Will it be in Colour? Or will it be in B&W?

For personal expression, freed from the constraints of Art Director demands and agreed-upon specifications, a photographer is faced with the delicious dilemna: colour or black-and-white.
When is it appropriate to use either one?
The general rule (and always meant to be broken) for a B&W image is one with a varied range of blacks, greys, whites, strong graphic elements, with good contrast between the elements. I use B&W when I don't want colours to get in the way of the message.
I use colour when colour IS the message!
Fortunately, all digital capture is in colour and with the magic of channel mixers and tone mixers and photo suites (Photoshop, Camera RAW, LightRoom, NIK, etc), any colour image can be converted into a B&W image worhty of Ansel Adams.
But what is also true is that not any image will work in B&W.
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to shoot a portrait session with Amanda, for TrilliumWest (arguably, the coolest, most progressive real estate brokerage in Ontario!). All the shots had to be in colour but as I was editing, it struck me that some images would look good in B&W too.
may or may not work in B&W
I think this will work in B&W
the following works, for sure

 the following only works in colour
So there you have it.

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