Past, Present, And Future of Creative Digital Photography Tips & Techniques
In large part, when we think of great photography prior to the digital era, we think of black and white imagery. Gritty stills of the Second World War. Magnifi cent Ansel Adams landscapes of the American West. Classical compositions of nudes, peppers, and shells by Edward Weston. All these and more are part of the shared black and white collective consciousness.
Sure, once color film came along we started filling up those yellow boxes with slides. But
until fairly recently color photos have not
been recognized as art.
Back in the days of fi lm, you could shoot in color or
in black and white. A vast gulf separated the two. Amateurs,
and some
advertising
photographers shot color. Art photographers worked in monochrome.
An oversimplifi cation, of course. But the fact
remains that if you had a 35mm camera, you had to decide what kind of fi lm cassette to load and whether it should
be color or not.
With the domination of digital technology in photography, the choice of color versus black and white no longer belongs to the physical domain. The best bet is to shoot full color whether you intend to present your fi nal image in color—or to make an outstanding black and white image. I’ll tell you more about the best practices in creating Black and White in the Digital Era, starting on page 66.
In other words, your photos of a given scene can be presented in both color and black and white. Or you can decide to
present your work in monochrome after you
see how your shoot has turned out. There’s nothing wrong with these approaches. But since black and white is now an affi rmative
choice—amounting
to the intentional abnegation of color—it works best to make this choice with intentionality.
Whichever way you choose to work, learning to think in black and white is part of the job.
Posts
0 Reviews:
Post a Comment