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Black and White Photography

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Black and White Photography
Black and white photography can be misunderstood in a modern artistic perspective. This type of photographic depiction is captivating and speaks through the image into the mind where it processes the lack of color by visualizing the depth and contrast vividly. An image that used in colorless photography was seen prior to the 20th century as the normal way to take pictures, but now we have color photography. However, photographers are still finding that black and white images are important to documentation, art, and photojournalism. Black and white photography is a technique that creates a unique impression upon the viewer that cannot be seen in traditional color photograph.
No one has to be an expert to realize when looking at a black and white image, that it is something out of the ordinary. “Black and white and color photography are two different languages.” (Hass 14) Looking at two images side by side, one black and white and one color, the color photograph may be striking, although when just glancing that opinion may be true but looking at them for a long period of time, the colorless picture will prove its self by composition using shadows and highlights. The darkness that seems to be apparent in a black and white photograph usually brings the viewer to believe it is sad and depressing but that opinion is in the eye of the beholder, can a photograph of a sunset be sad and depressing just because it is in black and white?
“The ultimate truth is that the black and white digital photography can make the world look completely different from what it is through the human eyes” (Jelling 1). Many digital photographers actually prefer to shoot images intentionally being black and white, in low contrast situations. So a dark or overcast day can be a great time to shoot out door shots. Most of the time for black and white photography, after the image is taken, it doesn’t need to be photo shopped or edited because the beauty stands on its own. In a color photograph, a lot



Cited: “In Living Color.” Creative Review. 1 July 1996: Lexis Nexis. Web. 22 September. Ernst Hass “Color Corrected.” Creative Review. August 2011. Nexis Lexis. Web. 27 September 2011. Simon Caterson. “Paint it Black.” Weekend Australian: 8. Nexis Lexis. Web. 27 September 2011. Jelling, Jakob. "Black and White Photography." Web log post. Web. Kertesz, Andre. Sept.-Oct. 2011. Quote. Adams, Ansel. Sept.-Oct. 2011. Quote. Enk, Filip, and Stephan Delbos. "Photographers Andreas Feininger and Dana Kyndrov." The Prague Post 28 July 2011, Tempo sec.: 1-2. Print. Saskia, Sassen. Black and White Photography as Theorizing: Seeing What the Eye Cannot See. Eastern Sociological Society, 2011. Database. Olsson, Harry. Black-and-white Landscape Photography: How to Achieve Professional Results through Proper Exposure, Development, and Printing. Professional Photographer, 1996. Print. A Photographers Dream. Prakel, David. Fundamentals of Creative Photography. Case Postale: AVA, 2010. Print.

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