Is Black and White film photography hard?

Ko.Fe. · May 1, 2017

BrianShaw said:
Isn't it.

My wife denies being a good photographer, which often results in an argument. Bizarre but true.

My wife and one of our daughters are much better portrait photographers than me. And both of them don't know much about technical aspects of photography. Both are great with drawing, paintings. Both feel the light...

Robin Guymer · May 1, 2017

When viewing a subject or scene to photograph in B&W, closing your eyes to a squint changes the view towards what it will be like without colour. If I'm not sure of how a scene will look on film I take an iPhone shot in B&W before hand which can help in making decisions to proceed, improve or move on.

B&W film is expensive to have labs process it so mastering the art of doing this yourself is just a part of the art. I have got a lot of satisfaction in improving my techniques using Caffenol which, after 12 months of B&W photography, I am confident that my processing will always be okay. I've just started to use Tetenal home developing of colour.

B&W is hard but can very satisfying when a good shot appears, sometimes surprisingly so. Stick with it as there is so much to learn.
Robin.

Wallendo · May 1, 2017

I was very disappointed with my shots when I began shooting B&W. Most of my shots did not come out the way I envisioned when I made the shot. Frequently they came across as grey and bland. Over time I learned what to expect when shooting B&W and now make much better shot selections.

Color images are reality with only a little grain and color shift to alter its appearance. Point a camera with color film in the general direction of a sunset and you will get a "pretty picture".
B&W isn't real, and it is up to the photographer to make it seem real or surreal as the case may be.

MattKing · May 1, 2017

It isn't hard - it is challenging.
But it is fun to try to meet that challenge.
In one way, it is much easier than it used to be. With the price of a lot of good quality used equipment being so relatively low, it is relatively easy to have both colour and black and white camera bodies/backs on hand. So you can easily experiment and/or specialize.
For me, the opportunity to control the black and white process throughout is a real plus. In many if not most situations, I am thinking about how I intend to print something when I expose the film.

Sirius Glass · May 1, 2017

Gerald C Koch said:
A few random thoughts. First, the difference between a color photograph and a B&W one is that color is the subject in the first case. You may have noticed that fashion photographers have moved away from color. Why, because it detracts from the model and what is being sold. What marketing wants the public to see is the coat, or the car, etc and not a particular shade of blue.

Second, B&W photography is not particularly difficult at least technically. But as Ansel Adams pointed out you do need to be completely familiar with your materials. Now I am not recommending the endless testing that some people love to perform. However you do need to be familiar with how a particular film responds in a certain lighting situation.

As to whether B&W photography is artistically difficult then most emphatically yes. Some people have the 'eye' but most do not. It's not something that can be taught. To use a musical example Mozart was writing very creditable symphonies at the age of three. You can't teach someone to be a genius. I do reserve the right to distinguish between artist and artisan. In the first paragraph above the fashion photographer is an artisan not an artist.

When you learn to take good black & white photographs, your color work will have improved also. The other way, not so much.

pentaxuser · May 1, 2017

Here's a final thought for you, OP, and one prompted by my recent look at the gallery. The vast majority of shots in the gallery are B&W so a great place to learn about what in your opinion, works and doesn't work in B&W. Become a subscriber to access the gallery(ies) and you have a continuously changing situation of pictures that most actual galleries could not hope to match. In the comments section ask questions of the contributor to gain extra information. My experience is that most if not all contributors of pictures are only too happy to supply information. It will cost a modest amount but may be cheaper and likely to be as, if not more, informative than the cost of most books. It helps APUG to survive as well

pentaxuser

LAG · May 1, 2017

jernejk said:
Looking at the photos I've recently shot on a family trip, most of them straight up suck. Actually there's only one I like, and to rub salt into wund, it was shot by my wife who's no photographer at all!

That's a matter of tastes, and anyone can do that ... without having to be a photographer!

jernejk said:
Colors are very important for our perception, they attract us to details. They provide contrast even when the levels of luminosity are the same. In essence, they provide 3 independent dimensions/vectors compared to BW single one. On top of that, most man made objects exploit that fact, that's why objects/cityscape will be attractive in color, but when shot with panchromatic BW film, they will turn into mushy blob of greys with no interesting points. Similar goes for landscape, the contrast between green/blue is well perceived in color, but is lost in BW.

Perhaps the thing is to see greys when you should think in blue. Or perpahs the thing is to think that the sky should always be blue when is not. Or perhaps the real point is that it is just a photographer's thing: to transfer the perception of any color he deems necessary, even without it.

jernejk said:
In my experience, digital BW is more forgiving: "filters" can be in some degree applied in post processing, while RGB information is still there. Shooting BW film, you need to make it right right there and then, as you can only work with the information you stored on the film in the time of shooting. For portraits, I don't know why, but to me it seems like digital BW just works better "out of the box". Maybe I just suck and need to make and develop many many more portrait shots to learn.

To my way of thinking, if someone believes that changing from one medium to another (film/D) will make a difference between better or worse for any aspect, that someone is completely forgetting that there is an invariable factor for both.

On the other hand I couldn't disagree more with the opinions above in which it is advised to leave B&W aside because it is not for you, it is not your thing, or that it is not everyone's medium, what the hell does that mean? (rhetorical question) Colour as a visual perception or interpretation, it is an activity that, with practice and skill, can be learned through experience and learning ... and has to do with the invariable factor I mentioned (and I omitted) before: The Eye

The rest is light & visual poetry

Best of luck!

p.s. I forgot to answer the question: Black and White film photography is not hard, at all

Gerald C Koch · May 1, 2017

Wallendo said:
Color images are reality.

Most color films present a rather distorted rendition of reality. For example highly saturated colors. That seems to be what people want.

Alan Johnson · May 2, 2017

I hope to get one image worth printing big from each trip in favorable weather.Sometimes I get nothing.St Ansel did not print most of his negatives. Difficult depends how selective the photographer is.

jernejk · May 2, 2017

After reading the comments I went back to the darkroom yesterday.

First thing I did is I cut a number of 5x7 papers in half, to get 3.5x5 (quite nonstandard) format. And it turns out this is actually important! 5x7 print on a wall, to me at least, is saying "look at me, i'm special". Smaller print is less of a "show-off". It's more like "hey, this is just a little something I found interesting". And it works better!

Then what I also did is I crop like mad, and really focus on the details. Amazing, how much cropping 400tx allows!

The idea is to use the good looking print as a central point, and surround it with multiple smaller prints on the wall. I think that will work nicely!

I still had some issues controlling contrast, but I think a part of the problem is using LED light in my enlarger. I remember having more control with a hallogen, so I'll try to go back.

faberryman · May 2, 2017

Different people have different ways of seeing the world. If black and white isn't your forte, try color. It may fit you better. There are many fine black and white photographers, so the metier isn't the problem.

faberryman · May 2, 2017

jernejk said:
Attached are two images which are not something I'd really hang in my living room.

Rather than focus on technical issues, I would ask what you saw in these photographs, and whether you think you captured that. When looking at photographs, or any art, the why is more interesting to me than the how.

Is Black and White film photography hard?

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