Thanks to the web and print magazines, a lot of people feel that B&W has been relegated to the artsy fartsy crowd. It seems lost in our new technology driven media where screens have been designed to oversaturate color to make it stand out. That said, I feel black and white photography still has a following and its place. B&W makes you focus more on the subject, and not relying on the contrasts of different colors.
People think that B&W photos and made up of just colors. Not so! But I’m sure you know that. B&W photos need to have two main components, a clean black and a clean white. Besides those two basic colors, you have an entire range of grays in between that fill in the rest of the photograph. No there are creative B&W photos out there composed of just a pure black and clean white, but for the most of photos out there you will have a gray gradient in middle so you capture more detail.
And whats the most fun part of B&W photography? Being able to play with patterns and textures. Both of these images were captured with the Nikon D5 and Nikon 14-24mm. This allows you to capture and convey mood on a more basic level. You still have light, shadows, and highlights to play with but boiled down to the basic elements of the color spectrum.
