Getting started with off-camera flash is already scary enough, right? Now add the element of a dark night sky and trying to create portraits that doesn't look like artificial light has just been thrown in with no control and it's an entirely different ballgame.
There is just something special about black & white imagery. Perhaps it’s the way we look back at the photographs of the masters like Richard Avedon, Peter Lindbergh and Ansel Adams to name a few, or perhaps it’s the way old movies have a specific feel to them as we watch them in monochrome.
Black & white photography has been around since the inception of photography, when the masters brought scenes of the west to life and changed the history of art forever.
Until recently, I rarely ever photographed in black & white, but this past year I decided to add a new genre of women’s intimate portraits to my session offerings.
It’s no secret that the key to good photography is balancing the seemingly endless array of options, styles, techniques, settings and so on.
In today's world, most of our images are captured digitally and remain digital. This is the modern way and there is absolutely nothing wrong with this.
As the saying goes, “There are many ways to do something in Photoshop.” This is accurate for most things, except when it comes to turning a color image to black & white.
Contrast and all the shades of gray is what makes photographs dynamic. Muddy and muted pictures don't do it for me.
Learning how to take these shots is a great way to take advantage of that photography demand area, since being versatile helps you build your business and take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way.
In a digital world, it’s easy to forget about shooting for black & white images since we can easily convert later.