Nature Photography Photo Workshop

Chapter 8. BLACK-AND-WHITE NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY

Seeing in Black and White

Choosing Subject Matter for Black and White

Digital Capture for Black and White

Converting Color Photos to Black and White

Black-and-white photography has existed much longer than color photography, and some of the very first photographs ever made were of nature. In the early days, black-and-white was the only solution for most photographers. Even in the modern age of color digital capture many nature photographers enjoy working in this genre, albeit with a much different digital process.

Black-and-white photographs can convey a very artistic impression. Most notably, a black-and-white photograph inspires the imagination. Whereas a color image is naturally visually stimulating, a black-and-white photo is intellectually stimulating if for no other reason than it's not the way most people see the world. This lends a great deal of drama to a black-and-white photograph, as shown in 8-1.

Figure 8-1. ABOUT THIS PHOTO Image of cactus at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico (ISO 200, f/10, 1/100 sec. with a Canon EF 28-135mm IS lens). Converted to black and white in Lightroom.

The majority of historical fine-art photographs were black and white; the great nature photographer Ansel Adams worked mostly ...