I am a black and white shooter. There. I’ve said it. I love black and white. I love the timeless, structural nature of it. I love the gradation away into darkness. Colour has always felt cheaper. Too close to the humdrum of daily existence. No drama. Plus, I have always been bored with my own colour photos and struggled to find an anchor to the image.
Recently I watched one of the Art of Photography videos on the Photo Assignments. If you haven’t watched Ted Forbes video’s I highly recommend them. Watch one, make notes, go shoot.
This video opened my eyes a bit to the possibilities of color - https://youtu.be/bAWZ9PtZ4uw
In black and white photography, I focus on separation of the subject (or subjects) from the rest of the world to bring focus and drama to the photo. Using framing, depth of field, and a few other techniques I try to draw the viewer’s eye to the purpose of the photo. Maybe colour can be one more technique? By using tension in the colour palette of the photo (along with framing, depth of field, etc) the subject can be further separated from the rest of the photo.
For this series I focused on red. I mostly live in Vancouver where there is a lot of green, so red seems to “pop” more for me.
