Fourteen years ago I took an interest in street photography. I went looking for resources and information on this amazing genre, unfortunately to no avail, until I came across a great free ebook in 2006 called “Street Photography for the purist” by Chris Weeks.
COOPH recently got together with London-based street photographer and co-founder of Street Photography Internationa Alan Schaller to talk about one of the most deceptively difficult forms of photography out there: black and white street photography.
Almost 5 years after the last Leica M-Monochrom (Typ 246) was announced in 2015, Leica has ditched the "Typ" number, increased the resolution, and expanded the ISO range to unveil the new M10 Monochrom: a camera that promises "an unparalleled black-and-white photography experience."
Shooting a long term project, whether personal or professional, is a wonderful way to explore areas of photography you might not have previously considered. I know of photographers who have experimented with different types of filters, post-processing techniques, actual shooting methods (long exposure, panning, unfamiliar/conventional focal lengths), and so on, as their projects evolve.
If you thought the Leica M Monochrom cameras were a gimmick that had already enjoyed their moment in the sun, it looks like you were wrong. According to the latest reports, the iconic German camera maker is working on a new Monochrom camera with a 41MP sensor and a design similar to the current Leica M10.
Video journalist Logan Baker over at Shutterstock put together a handy primer for anybody who is looking to get into black-and-white photography for the first time. The tutorial amounts to an easy-to-follow beginner's guide that we highly recommend you check out if you're just getting started in this genre.
Instant photography can get expensive fast: a pack of Fuji INSTAX Square (20 count) costs $18, and only 8 exposures of Polaroid Originals Color will cost you $19! That's where the Alulu camera comes in. Where other cameras use film, Alulu uses new or used receipt paper!
The black and white aesthetic can sometimes be a contentious issue among photographers. The decision to shoot monochromatic images is, for some, an afterthought in a way that other choices like filters, focal lengths, and exposure settings would not be.
Check out this photo. Although it may look like a color picture upon first glance (and even more so if you squint or view it from a distance), it's actually a black-and-white photo with thin color grid lines overlaid on it to trick your brain into filling in the missing color.
Clients often ask whether they can have their photos in black-and-white. My reply is always that I’ll do black-and-white versions in the gallery if they work -- if they help the image shout “look at me”.
CatLABS has announced CatLABS X FILM 80, a new black-and-white negative film that is being launched in multiple formats.
A very common piece of advice for photographers looking to take their work to the “next level” is that they must invest time in themselves in the process of developing a “style.” A photographic style can mean many things; a theme within the subject matter, a specific color palette, a certain compositional approach, and anything else that leaves the artist's work with a distinct "fingerprint."
I’m not sure on what day I realized that my street photography work had become overly homogeneous, and sometimes asinine. “Oh look, a red car and a red shirt. click.” I’d been in love with the look of Fujifilm’s Classic Chrome (based off of Kodak Kodachrome) and had begun to shoot a lot of color for color’s sake.
One of the earliest ways of creating color photos was by combining black-and-white photos shot using red, green, and blue filters. Matt Gray recently decided to use this technique to shoot color photos using his Game Boy Camera.
Something I’ve always found difficult was knowing when an image should be converted to black and white and when it should be left in color. It’s one of the more contested discussions in photography and there really isn’t a “black and white” or cut and dry answer to it. After much trial and error, I’ve come up with three questions that I consistently ask myself when trying to determine if a color image is a good candidate for B&W.
Moises Levy is a Mexico City-based photographer who uses juxtaposition to tell the story of life on beaches and open spaces. His black-and-white photo portfolio is filled with clever framing and compositions.
ADOX, the world's oldest photographic materials manufacturer, has announced a new monochrome film called HR-50 that will be available in 35mm, 120, and 4x5 formats.
Fujifilm killed off the last of its black-and-white film and photo paper back in April 2018. For many film photographers that news was like a dagger to the heart, but there is hope yet: Fujifilm is reportedly considering bringing its B&W film back.
Mexican photographer and social anthropologist Anuar Patjane uses his photos to drive attention to the beauty of Earth's oceans. In his impressive portfolio is a mesmerizing series of black-and-white photos showing divers being eclipsed by massive schools of swirling fish.
My photo project Wildlife is a series of black-and-white film photos showing some of the most amazing and beautiful animals in the world. But these photos aren’t what they appear to be.
CineStill just announced a "holy grail" of film photography: a single-step monobath called Df96 for processing any black-and-white film. The company says it's the world's fastest process -- one that can develop your film in just 3 minutes, from start to finish.
In the 1950s, early color photography was widely scorned. Now it’s the default. What happened?
Photographer Luc Kordas first moved from Europe to New York City in 2014 after living in six different countries in six different years. Since then, he has made his living as a photographer while doing street photography for himself. And one of the recurring subjects he has captured is the idea of loneliness in a big city.
Ilford recently released a popular 8-minute video on how to process black-and-white film yourself, and now the film company is back again with another helpful crash course on how to make a black-and-white print in a darkroom. If you've never worked in a darkroom before, this intro is a great way to see what it's all about.
If you've never tried your hand at black-and-white film photography before but would like to learn the basics of developing your own film at home, here's a great 8-minute primer that'll get you up to speed.
Mike Olbinski is one of the best in the business at combining time-lapse photography with storm-chasing, and his latest work is yet another jaw-dropping fusion of those two things. Titled Breathe, the 4-minute short-film captures the beauty and fury of thunderstorms in black-and-white 8K.
Digital colorizations of historical photos have gotten quite a bit of attention in recent years. Retrographic is a new photo book that brings this concept to physical pages. It's a collection of some of the world's most well-known black-and-white historical photos transformed into living color.
In the relatively warm winter between 2014 and 2015, common starlings were found staying in the Netherlands instead of migrating to the south. Photographer and filmmaker Jan van IJken took his camera out and shot this beautiful short film titled "The Art of Flying." It shows thousands upon thousands of birds flying in eye-popping swarms (known as murmurations).
There are many tips and tricks in Photoshop that can make editing life easier if you know how to use them. Here's a 13-minute tutorial by PiXimperfect that teaches how you can easily identify and remove blemishes in portraits using a black-and-white adjustment layer.
Adobe is teasing an impressive new technology called Scribbler. It's an "interactive deep learning-based image generation system" that you can use to automatically colorize black-and-white photos. Above is a 6.5-minute demo of Scribbler.
Mea Shearim was established in 1874 as the fifth settlement outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Its name is derived from a verse in the weekly Torah portion that was read the week the settlement was founded: "Isaac sowed in that land, and in that year he reaped a hundredfold (מאה שערים, Mea Shearim); God had blessed him" (Genesis 26:12).
FOQUS Type-D 200 is a brand new line of black and white 35mm film from the Russian company FOQUS. It's said to have fine grain, strong contrast, and "pretty good tone range."
I'm photographer Andrew of Denae & Andrew, and this is my 400 speed, 35mm black-and-white film guide. In this guide, I will be comparing every 400 ISO black and white film which is actively being produced and readily available to the U.S. market, that I know about.
Here's an incredible series of underwater photos showing a diver being dwarfed by the gigantic structure of an oil rig. They were shot by award-winning Mexican photographer Anuar Patjane Floriuk.
My name is Daniel Tjongari, and I'm a photographer based in Surabaya, Indonesia. I recently journeyed to Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park in East Java, Indonesia, and shot a series of black-and-white fine art photographs there.
Photographer Rick Wenner was recently sent to Wildwood, New Jersey, to shoot a peculiar event called "The Race of Gentlemen." It's a gathering of drag racers who speed across a beach on pre-war era hot rods and motorcycles -- the "perfect event for black-and-white photography," Wenner says.
Here's a 15-minute video by photographer Sean Tucker in which he runs through an effective technique for processing black and white images, with a focus on mobile. Tucker demonstrates using curves and HSL sliders to achieve a dramatic look for his images that end up on his Instagram.
Photo colorization is usually done in programs like Photoshop, but did you know that you can achieve good results in Lightroom as well? In this 21-minute video by tutvid, learn how to colorize a black and white photo using only Lightroom.
Photographer Burton Rast has just completed a new project titled, The Shapes of San Francisco. He spent 100 days exploring SF and shooting one photo per day of the city's most popular and photographed sights, but "in a unique way." Each photo focuses on shapes.
Black-and-white still remains the photographer’s favorite for street photographers, and with very good reason. Where in other genres monochrome has become a niche look, street photography is different. Why does B&W remain the favorite choice of street photographers, and are there logical reasons to go for it?