There comes a time when every glamour photographer faces a real dilemma. It sounds fairly simple, but evokes tremendous doubts. This dilemma lies in choosing between color and monochrome photography.
Most of its history photography has been monochrome – and nobody really concerned about bright and vivid colors. At that time beauty pictures were distinguishable masterpieces, yet none was performed in full color.
After photography had acquired color, it underwent some significant changes. Nowadays, when digital photography enabled photographers to reproduce millions of shades, the “bright” approach seems even more preferable.
So, let us investigate this matter and find the solution to using colors and black and white efficiently and wisely. As many things in Glamorous Photography, one’s preferences are a matter of perspective – there isn’t, and there shouldn’t be, any “wrong choices”.
Firstly, it should be clarified that shooting a good monochrome photo is just as challenging as if you aimed for depicting all the shades that exist. If you think that, for example, shooting in black and white is going to make your photographer’s job easier, think again.
No matter if you shoot in color or without it, light is still your everything. Unless you spend necessary time and effort to arrange good light for your work, photographs will keep being flat and uninteresting. No exceptions. No matter if you prefer to create colorful photos or position yourself as a conservative fan of black and white, you need to mind the lighting at all times.
The only distinctions are connected with the photograph’s impact upon the viewer, with each of the two approaches it is different. Some of them are best to learn right away:
- Colors are excellent for placing accents you want your viewers to concentrate on. A colorful image draws both glances and thoughts to it; composition is easy to arrange based on the colors of its key elements; various colors unveil different mood to them, creating atmosphere your viewers can perceive.
- Monochrome is more about textures and shapes, so less attention is paid to the nuances of shades. Black and white photography enables the viewer to notice the interaction of light and objects within the frame, allowing to see those patterns more clearly. If you want to produce a subtle, artistic and powerful photo, black and white is invaluable. Black and white can as well remove tone defects which never do any good to a beauty picture – if you got somewhat strange colors on the photograph, gray-scale is a life-saver.
- Different types of monochrome can also help you make an artistic picture. Some glamour artists find sepia a very suitable way to traduce their artistic manner to the viewer. There are many other techniques to try out infrared, hi-key, duotone and others. There are countless tutorials online, so you can learn much if you want to.
- Another thing to do is combining monochrome and colors within one image, though this approach is considered unoriginal, it still can be used in a refreshing manner, can’t it? Even the most trivial technique can be used in an unusual way, so it really is entirely up to you. Viewers usually notice spots of color on monochromatic background at once, though unoriginal, they may look quite unusual, ergo attractive; black and white elements in the whirlpool of colors and tones work almost the same and may prove useful as well.
You must have realized by now that there is no right or wrong choice on this particular subject, as long as color and gray-scale co-exist, so long glamour photographers will enjoy their holy wars about what is best to use. In fact, you don’t need to choose, if something serves your purpose best of all, corresponds to the mood of your photo and delivers your message efficiently, you should have no doubts about what you do. It isn’t methods and schools that create masterpieces, it’s people, their vision and their talents.
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