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i've been interested in photography for as long as i can remember. i received my first non-disposable camera when i was 11 or 12 years old, as a birthday present from my parents. the model was a minolta stsi, one of minolta's entry level slr cameras at the time. i shot on film up until 2007, but began making the switch to digital in 2006, after purchasing my first non-potato digital camera, a fujifilm finepix s9000.
i haven't really been publishing any photos since 2013 or 2014, apart from just sharing with friends, but i still remain very interested in the hobby to this day. over the course of my photography journey, from capturing moments on film and digital, whether it be color photographs or some form of monochrome, black+white stands out to me the most these days. not because it’s better or worse than something like a color photograph, i treat both mediums as equal tools in my arsenal.
over the years, i’ve seen an increase of posts on forums, reddit, etc, that ask why people shoot in black+white. some of these posts even referring to people who just set their camera to spit out a sooc/stright-out-of-camera black+white jpeg, with no way to regain the original color if wanted in the future. this is why i currently find black+white so interesting.
i’m going to be working under the presumption that the people who ask these questions are younger and/or got into photography, in recent years, strictly on their own time, without taking any classes in grade school or college. i learned photography on my own time, but took a photography class/elective in high school and college, mainly just to fill in elective class requirements. the class i took in high school, in 2006/2007, was strictly black+white film only. however, the class i took 2-3 years later in college was strictly color only (for whatever reason). both of these classes were intro-level classes.
i’m in the camp that believes shooting in black+white is a crucial step for someone that’s getting into photography. with color out of the equation, the photographer is forced to focus more on things like composition, fine detail, emotion, etc. sure, one can learn the above exclusively in color, but a very vibrant, color-happy scene may just end up being a big distraction away from the story that they’re trying to tell.
and, quite frankly, i’m just tired of seeing all these photographs of things like colorful landscape shots that seemingly just focus on that, the color. once your eyes recover from the color splash, you start to notice distracting details like unintentional framing errors, crooked horizons, and/or lack of a distinct foreground/subject and background. a scene like this just yells to my eyes, “oh wow, this is a beautiful (colorful) scene, i’m going to snap a pic just because of the vibrancy.” please, for the love of god, put your $1k+ fujifilm camera or $4k+ leica q series camera to good use.
back to the topic of the people who ask why people shoot in black+white over color, and why these people are the reason i currently find black+white photography so interesting. i don’t exactly know why. i guess it’s the same reason why i’m just as fascinated finding out that there’s a lot of younger people who have trouble reading cursive handwriting or an analog clock. oh how the times are changing.
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bix
