Spent the last few days thinking about what I wanted to rave on about this time but decided to leave all the stuff I can easily criticise and complain about within the industry and instead talk about something that I love. Black & White photography.
I love it for a multitude of reasons, for example the photo above was taken 2 months ago in a hotel but could also have been taken 50 years ago. It has that sleek, sexy and juxtaposed feel even with the complete removal of colour. It sets apart a lot images and always manages to en-keep this beautiful 'timeless' feel to it.
Another thing I feel black and white does so well is emotion. with the removal of so much context you gain another view which draws focus is this emotion and feel to it wether its playfulness, angst, upset or joy its so easily conveyed and show across a black and white image. I find myself regularly just flipping images into black and white all the time to see if it can convey something more powerful than the colour image itself. (Its saved a fair few images from the bin a fair few times)
Shooting it on film in my opinion is even more fun I find I end up thinking and 'seeing' in 'black and white' as a pose to my (obviously) normal colour view, it has that beautiful nostalgia and I think In an age we live in where everything is so loud and vibrant and constantly with high contrast and over edits. Black and white manages set itself apart with its simplicity and limitations and have found myself loving it more and more in both my photos and my occasional video crusades.
And finally, you over exposed an image? cooked it proper bad n left your aperture or iso too high? or didn't adjust your flash speed with how far or close you are? Slap it into your software (I'm Lightroom), make it black and white, adjust the whites and blacks and exposures etc. (or if your even bigger brain like myself and you really really fucked the photo, invert the image) See how many 'Flop photos' you end up saving.
Some free game in there for my loyal readers :)
Love
D x
