I enjoy looking at good black and white photographs. But maybe it’s just me – I find it extraordinarily difficult to create good black and white photographs.
The problem is, we see in color. And I use color references to help me select and frame photographs before I press the shutter button. Then I get home and experiment – gee, would this look good in black and white? Invariably the answer is no – the color version looks better. This was true when we lived in Namibia and much of what I photographed was wildlife and nature, and it’s true in India where bright colors contribute to the vibrance /controlled chaos that happens in the streets of the city every day. Because the idea is, once you figure out through trial and error with a digital camera the kinds of things that would look good in black and white, you should be able to do the same thing with an analog camera and a roll of black and white film.
It gives me a much bigger appreciation for the masters who didn’t have digital cameras to help them learn their craft through trial and error. They had to pay cash for their mistakes.
This is one I took recently. Usually when I change a color photo to black and white, the color version looks much better (to me). I think this is a good example of where the bw version looks at least as good as the color version, if not better. Your thoughts?
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