Guest Post: ‘Black and White. Why?’ by Grant Marcus

Taking pictures or converting images into monochrome is as popular now as it has ever been. With colour film and the modern digital technology that are available today monochrome for me still brings out the magical reality of a specific scene. It brings out the mood and atmosphere of certain scenes. The way I convert my images to monochrome is:

• Shoot in RAW
• Convert and edit in CS4
• Convert from colour to monochrome with NIK software : Silver effex pro and Color effex pro.

Everybody that does wildlife photography come to the point of monochrome at some point in their lives at which point you face the question – why black and white?

Why do you want to take out the contrasts with the colour.  The answer is simple – monochrome is special.  It gives a different ambience to images. The lack of colour makes certain images powerful and brings out the seriousness of the image.  In some images colour can deviate the centre point of an image and distract you from the real subject.

When I am out in the field I find that monochrome works best for portrait shots. It really brings out more of the personality of your subject.  In Madikwe, especially in the summer, we have a few days that is overcast and this is the best conditions for monochrome shooting.  It really sets the mood for the capture.  Diffusedlight is the best for black and white.  

What I noticed is that black and white images can evoke both negative and positive emotions.  When photographers wants to get a message out there of violence, disasters of nature or war they use black and white to evoke certain emotions. The message of injustice can be carried over so much better then in colour. The image below is quite funny and I think it evokes laughter to a certain sense.

For me monochrome works well however, something that I still find difficult is to see in black and white before you take the image. All the different colours like green and red are two totally different colours, but they come out as very similar shades of grey. Black and white represents different colour in these images. And it takes a while to get used to it.

A handy tool to keep with you is an orange filter to look through.  You will see monochromatic subject but the colours will be very similar to that in your black and white image.  Remember monochrome doesn’t work well with all images. It will never be able to replace that warm light of early morning or late afternoon however if you are photographing a subject laying in the shade with sunspots coming thru, dappled light, black and white works very well.

When converting into black and white you can also leave some colours as they are like red or yellow. It works very well especially when lions are on a fresh kill, it is something unique.

Keep on looking with that ‘black and white’ eye.

Grant Marcus

Grant’s Links:

• Blog:  Wildlife Throught Grant’s Lens
• Facebook:  Hook up with Grant on Facebook
• Portfolio: Grant’s Images on the Photo-Africa Stock Library