Black and white portraits come in and out of style. With so many apps that you can click to change the filter/look of an image people are creating black and whites out of most any shot.
What Makes A Great Black and White Photograph?
Can any color shot look great as a black and white? No. You can certainly make any color image a black and white but that doesn’t mean it’ll look great. I remember shooting my first roll of black and white film during my teen years. I photographed some scenes, a few people outside then sent off the film (I didn’t have a darkroom in those days). When I got the images back boy was I disappointed. They were really flat—grays and no real blacks and whites—no contrast. From then on I vowed to learn how to make a greatblack and white photograph—something I’ve been doing for more than 30 years now. I moved from film which I processed and printed myself to digital. With digital people always just assume you just click a button and boom you get a fantastic image. Not true. In fact I usually can tell the amateurs and beginning pros who do this very thing. The resulting image just lacks a certain something.
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