There is real magic in black and white photography. At its best, the silver tones, rich blacks, and brilliant highlights of a monochrome image have a beauty that can't be matched.

Proof of the power of black and white is the mere fact of its survival over the years. As manufacturers continually released new color film stocks offering brighter and more saturated colors, black and white films hardly changed at all. And yet, for all of the modern insistence that color is better, black and white photography remains extremely popular. There's a special magic in black and white photography.

Seeing in Black and White

For the first half of my career I preferred to shoot in black and white. And I'm so glad that I did. Because when you work in black and white, especially as you learn photography, you learn to see in shapes and lines. There are no colors to distract you from the process of building a visually interesting composition. With black and white, you're working with the skeleton of the photograph.

The Skeleton

The skeleton of the photograph is composed of the lines and shapes that the composition of your image is built on. Made up of monochromatic (black, gray, white) tones, your eye is left to wander the geometry of the photograph, unaffected by colors which can pull the eye away from the graphic design of the image.

Tonal Range

One fallacy of modern photography is the idea that it is simple to switch your color photographs into black and white. True, it is simple to make that switch. But often you will be left with flat, mushy black and white photographs. Great black and white photography takes advantage of the full tonal range.

On the left are three versions of the same photograph, each converted from the original RAW image capture. At top is the scene as the camera saw it, in color. In the middle image, I simply converted the color image to black and white with no adjustments to the tones. The bottom image has been adjusted to take in the entire tonal range and some snappier contrast, with rich blacks and bright highlights. Next to the bottom frame, it's obvious that the middle image lacks contrast.

There are a number of ways to convert your color photographs into black and white. It seems that every photographer has their own system. You can read about them all, in detail, on numerous websites. Test them out, and whatever system you decide to use, make sure that your black and white photographs are strong. Black and white isn't the best choice in every situation, but it provides the perfect look in the right situations.