Adventure in Black and White

March is the month of the epidemic/ Pandemic of COVD-19 virus at least at the part of the world I reside, North West of the United States. The first epicenter in the US. I will write about the epidemic in another blog later.  Before it all started March was a designated month of Black and Photography for me. I chose March for no reason but I always wanted to experiment in Black and white photography and I chose March for taking Black and White pictures for an entire month. 

Black and White pictures feel somewhat natural for me since I am from an era of Black and White photography. Yes, there were color films since the 60s but it was not widely available and the early color films didn’t have the quality to represent the real world, they were somewhat off. The black and white pictures of the time were much superior because they somewhat depict the real world even it is in monochrome. It was also what people were used too. On top of that most outstanding artistic photographers frown on shooting color. That changed in a few decades when color film became widely available and the quality of the films got much better. When point and shoot cameras came to the market black and white photography disappeared to the background limited to the artistic photographers. The era of digital images did solidify the dominance of color photography for good. Point and shoot and DSLR cameras now have a superior quality of capturing what you see than the first color films. But with all this progress, Color Photography didn’t kill Black and White Photography. Still, Black and White Photography is considered more artistic than plain color ones. Black and white is a much greater way to take artistic pictures because of its simplicity and at the same time, it can be used to send a very complicated message. Pictures in black and white are more focused on the subject than color photographs for a simple reason of not having any color to distract the viewer. Humans are blessed to see color and it is a natural tendency to be attracted to be drawn to the most brightly colored object in real life or when looking at a picture.  A Back and White picture have only the light and shadows to tell the story of the artist. If used properly it can be a very power full tool to tell a good story.

My first experiment with black and white photography was with a back and white film which was really hard to find because at that time everybody had switched to color. People will see you as if you are crazy when you are talking about taking pictures in black and white. I found my film after searching for it all over Addis and used a borrowed Minolta SLR camera to take some pictures. When the negative was developed only about 20 of the pictures made it without being over or underexposed. That was not bad for the first attempt considering everything had to be done manually using only the sunny 16 rule. That was a good experience but I didn’t pursue it and moved on to shoot color on point and shoot cameras like everyone else.

After many years I started photography as a serious hobby but now this time the era of film photography has been over at least in the mainstream. SLRs were replaced by DSLRs and technically films were replaced by digital sensors. Darkrooms are now replaced by computers to post-process the digital images. The digital age of photography made photography accessible and affordable to all. Now everyone is a photographer since all phones are capable of taking digital pictures. With all this advancement and the progress made in improving the quality of digital images, Black and White Photography remained as one of the refined tools of artists. Black and White Photography is now used more in post-process than it had been in its film days. We have now powerful software and apps to convert our color photographs to the right Monochrome pictures in post prosses. I used these tools too to convert my color images into Black and Whites every now and then but I never intentionally shot a series of pictures or took a project to shoot only in black and white.

When I decided to shoot Black and White pictures for a month, I decided to shoot straight Black and White instead of shooting in color and converting the pictures in post-process. I have to now see the world in Monochrome like all photographers who shoot black and white photos have done since the beginning of photography. I had one advantage though, the Fujifilm Mirrorless System I use gives me an option to see the world in black and white through its Electronic ViewFinder or the back-LCD screen. This is a huge advantage to have, now I can see what kind of picture I am taking in real-time rater than let my imagination convert the scene into black and white. Fujifilm made this possible by incorporating its rich film tradition into the digital mirrorless systems which makes your digital images look just like they have been taken in any of fuji films that Fuji was known for. Unlike Kodak Fuji didn’t straggle when digital photography started to dominate. Perhaps Fuji struggled for some time but it managed to transform itself into the digital world and while doing so it incorporated its rich film tradition into the new technology. This is a huge bonus for photographers who came from the film era or for young artistic photographers who want to experiment.

Shooting images in Black and White for a month made me see the world from a new perspective. I shot everything in Monochrome from portrait and street photography to where it is not very widely used like landscape and Macro photography. Now I can truly say that photography is an art form of capturing light as the name implies. I can now see the light and the shadows and the reflections in every photograph I take. It is a great experience. Without the distraction of color, I can now produce more pictures which makes the viewer focus more on the subject and in the story, I want to tell. I have now more control to set the mood of my pictures as well. I will be taking more pictures in Black and White but it will not be the only way that I will be taking pictures because I want to be free to use any medium of photography to tell my story. I am also going to take black and white pictures in film which will force me to slow down and be mindful of each picture I take. I am using a manual SLR Konica Autoreflex TC without a functioning light meter and a role of ILFORD DELTA 400 film. It will take me a while to finish the role because I have to make sure each shot that I take is worth the shot. That will be an interesting experience.