10. Black & White Autumn

Back in mid-September, one of the photo communities I am in challenged us to shoot only back & white for a few months.

Our challenge for the autumn months is to purposefully shoot in black & white. If you really want to get your head inside this, you can really commit to the idea and force yourself to shoot nothing but black & white.

The idea is to get you really THINKING about black & white so that it becomes a creative choice rather than an afterthought.

I embraced this challenge and shot nothing but black & white for two and a half months.¹ Before this, I hadn’t seriously shot in black & white since a summer course in college 36 years ago.

Fully committing to black & white² was a great learning/growing experience—and it did change my thinking/seeing.

At first, I shot the same images I would have shot in color, which were totally meh. After a week or so, my shooting began to change. More contrasty subjects. More lines. More patterns, and most importantly, simpler photos (except for the reflections).

Here is some of what I shot.

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Street

Street photography is still pretty new to me and much of what I do shoot is based on the colors of people’s outfits. These two are different and make me think that black & white may be the way for me to go with street photography.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)

San Francisco Muni train at Forest Hill station

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Architecture

Pattern and contrast seemed to be particularly important when shooting architecture in black & white.

James Turrell’s Three Gems skyspace, de Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

Fort Point National Historic Site, Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), San Francisco

Burlingame, California

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Reflections

Reflections were a lot easier for me to experiment with in black & white because the lack of color allowed lots of elements and layers to merge creating a puzzle-like image.

Broadway, Burlingame, California

California Drive, Burlingame, California

Airport Boulevard, Burlingame, California

Still life

I did a series of lightscapes called Seeing Light in color. After shooting the shot below I realized for the next series I want to shoot a bit wider with more context in each shoot.

Late afternoon on a quiet day. Burlingame, California

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I hope you enjoyed my exploration of black & white. I’d love to hear about your thoughts on black & white or your explorations of ways of shooting new to you.

Warmly,
Josh

Thanks for reading Random Capture! If it gives you a few moments of enjoyment, please comment, like, subscribe, or share. The endorphins I get when I see any of that happen keeps me writing and photographing.

1. Black & white on mirrorless cameras (or maybe digital cameras in general) is interesting for two reasons. First, unlike shooting black & white film where the viewfinder still shows the world in color, you can set the digital camera to show you what the world looks like in black & white before you take the picture.

Second, if you shoot in RAW all the color data is actually there so if you later realize it was a better color photo, you can always convert to color. Some people shoot color and then convert to black & white but I liked shooting directly in black & white. Nothing against people who convert, but to me, never seeing the color image felt more authentic… not in an ‘I need to be authentic’ sort of way but in an I’m in a black & white mindset sort of way.

2. I didn’t actually shoot 100% black & white. At first, I set the iPhone to only shoot black & white but I use the iPhone camera for so much more than art (e.g. “honey, is this the bag of salad you want?”) that it became really annoying so the iPhone soon went back to color.

Also, I saw one shot I needed to have in color so I momentarily switched the camera back to color. You can see the color image among the sea of black & white below:

And here is the full-size image:

Pathway between Crissy Field and Fort Point, Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), San Francisco

And here is the irony:

Three months after I took that photo the chains are gone. They looked historic but apparently were not. “Now despite the historic look of the chains, they were actually installed in the 1990s, according to the National Park Service. Before that, there were wooden guardrails for several decades.” That didn’t stop many photographers from mourning their disappearance or even expressing outrage. I will also miss them. Get out there and capture what moves you before its gone.