Guest Post: ‘Shooting Africa in Black and White’ by Gerry van der Walt

Wildlife photography is widely regarded as one of the more challenging forms of the craft.  Apart from sound technical skills to help you deal with challenging lighting conditions you also need a great deal of patience and luck.

The reality is that you will not always get the shot you want.  Sorry, but you won’t.  That’s just the way nature works. You can spend a week out in the wild places of Africa and not come across a single subject that we see gracing the pages of coffee table books these days.  You can sit with a pride of lions for an entire day and end up with nothing but a few images of lions sleeping and, if you are lucky, a couple of lazy yawns.

Working in the Madikwe Game Reserve I find myself in a very fortunate position in that I get to photograph Africa’s wildlife on an almost daily basis.  For most people however going on safari, and getting the opportunity to photograph the renowned Big 5 and Africa’s other large mammals in the wild, is a very special and sometimes once in a lifetime adventure. This being the case, should we not make the most of our wildlife experience and dig deep into our photographic bag of tricks to get memorable image?

Now if you are lucky enough to go on safari and bump into one National Geographic scene after another, by all means, keep on firing away but if you find yourself starting to get frustrated due to a lack of outdoor action you need to start thinking of ways in which you can make images rather than take them.

As with most other genres, in wildlife photography there are many different ways in which you can approach a scene or subject to create striking images.  To tell your visual story.  Look for interesting perspectives.  Zoom in.  Zoom out.  Use different lenses.  Use different shutter speeds to blur movement.  The options are endless however there is one approach, which does not get used all that often in wildlife photography, which can add a whole new dimension to your wildlife and nature images.

Shoot Africa in black and white.

Our eyes are drawn to colour which in turn and when used correctly has the potential to evoke powerful moods and emotions.  In nature there is no denying the colourful brilliance of a Lilac Breasted Roller in flight or the golden afternoon sun playing around on a lion’s mane.  However, when you desaturate an image such as this your visual story changes.  When you remove colour from a scene you remove the reality however you end up with an image that is more real.  There are no colours to distract your eye from the real story underneath and you have to rely on your subject to stand on its own.  But how do you look past the colours?

Initially it is quite difficult to look at and see your subjects in black & white but as with anything this does become easier with practise.  By embracing the digital aspects of modern photography you can use imaging software such as Adobe’s Lightroom, which has a very useful Grayscale option, to help you to look at ‘see’ your images in black & white.  You get to create a virtual copy of an image and then view the two images side by side.  Soon enough you will find it easier to look at and see which images will work in black and white and which are better left saturated with colour.

The ideal, when creating black and white wildlife images, is to have as close to pure white and pure black in the same image without losing the mid-tones in between.  We are visually drawn to this contrast between shadows and highlights but when you are shooting in black and white it is important to remember that images with too much contrast could come across as too harsh so less contrast will end up making better monochrome images.  The reason for this is that your eyes are capable of taking in a great deal more information than even the fanciest cameras and this can translate to disappointing results when you look at your images afterwards.  If you look at a high contrast scene your camera will not be able to capture the entire tonal range that you see and you end up with images that lack details in the mid tones.

If only there was a way in which we could see what the camera sees it would make assessing a scene so much easier.  There is.

People might think you are quite strange when you do this but it works.  When you are next looking at a scene to decide whether or not it will look good as a black and white image close one eye and squint with the other.  By doing this you are reducing the tonal range of what you are seeing and removing a lot of the mid tones from the scene.  If, while you are squinting, you can still see the details in the mid tones the scene or subject will work as a black and white and your camera should be able to capture the entire range of tones, from white to black and everything in between.  This squint technique will also help you to see lines and shapes rather than colour which will assist you when composing your images.

Even though numerous modern cameras have settings which will allow you to shoot in black and white or sepia I suggest that you always shoot in RAW and then convert your images to black and white during post processing.   Remember that when shooting in black and white mode the camera will still be capturing the data in colour and then converting it to monochrome.   To create powerful, striking black and white images you have to process your images and by shooting in RAW you will not only have all the digital information available to work with but you will also have the choice of returning to the digital negative at a later stage should you want to create a colour version of a specific image.

The goal when converting your wildlife images to black and white is not only to remove the colour but to accentuate the textures, shapes and lines in your image.  There are a large number of ways in which you can convert your images to monochrome and a quick search on the internet will give you many different tutorials.  Ultimately it is not how you get there but that you end up with the black and white image you had in mind when clicking the shutter in the first place.  In this case it is the destination, not the journey.

When converting my wildlife images to black and white I will normally open the RAW files in Lightroom where I crop the image and make any necessary exposure and other minor adjustments such as brightness and contrast.  At this stage the focus is to make sure that I have no burnt out highlights and at least a certain amount of detail in the shadow areas of the image.  From here I would normally export the file to Photoshop CS4 for conversion to black and white.   As mentioned earlier I like to use Lightroom’s Grayscale feature to get a quick preview of the image in monochrome but even though Lightroom is capable of doing a fantastic job of converting images to black and white I prefer to use Nik’s Silver Efex Pro plugin for Photoshop.

Once my file is open in Photoshop I open the Nik Silver Efex plugin which offers a range of presets to get you started, and will give great results on their own, but you also have the option of adjusting all the variables to get the image closer to your own black and white vision.  You can easily control the brightness, contrast and structure of the image by adjusting three sliders and also add various colour filters to your images which either neutralises some colours or makes others pop out.  The Silver Efex filter also gives you an easy way of adding a vignette effect around your images, in a very similar way to Lightroom, so rather than having to go and add this afterwards you get to do most of the conversion and processing in one convenient filter.  Once I am happy with the black and white image will sharpen the image based on whether it’s final destination is print or digital media.

When you start shooting Africa in black and white it is important to remember that you still have to apply all the basic principles of photography.  You still have to make sure that you get the exposure right.  Guidelines like the ‘rule of thirds’ still count.  It is also worth mentioning, and many people do this, that converting a weak colour image to monochrome will not save the image even though sometimes it might end up being stronger than the original.  You might get lucky but there is no doubt that you will end up with much stronger black and white images if you plan, and see it, from before you click the shutter.

So if you are keen to shoot wildlife and nature in black and white remember these few points before, during and after you fire away.

• Lines and Shapes – Look for strong leading lines and shapes when composing your images.
• Contrast – Look for contrast in the images but remember, in monochrome less is more.
• Squint – To assess contrast and mid tones, close one eye and squint with the other.
• RAW – Shoot in RAW so that you have enough digital information when converting you images.
• Shoot in Colour – Shoot in color so that you have the option of reusing your RAW file again to create a color copy of the image.
• Process – Convert and process your images to highlight lines, shapes and contrast.
• Practise – As with anything shooting in black and white gets easier with practice.

By adding black and white photography to your range of visual skills you will not only make sure that you always have something to photograph when you are out in the wild but you will also start looking at all your subjects differently.  You will start seeing lines and shape.  You will see contrast and texture.  You will think about your images more and this will only lead to you becoming a better photographer in general.

Next time you head out to a game reserve with your camera at the ready, try something different.  Try looking past the colour.  Try shooting Africa in black and white.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to comment or contact me.

Will be back tomorrow to wrap up a very busy week!

Gerry