Thread 4432141

Do you ever find yourself resorting to B&W when you can't salvage the colors in a picture due to light?

The best example I can think of is outdoor photo shoots. I see plenty of photographers who either due to bad luck or retardation end up doing photo shoots in very boring/unflattering natural light which results in very bad looking pictures, in which there isn't much to do to salvage it. I really don't have a clue as to what the average person thinks of B&W, there must be a reason as to why these photographers would rather post their poorly lit and edited pictures instead of just removing that variable entirely. Thoughts? How can one avoid this problem if you want to shoot with natural light? Is it just luck?

>>4432141 (OP)
actually color is what you shoot when the light is too bad for black and white

>>4432142
Lmao, no
You have to hop over to BW when pushing the exposure in LR rapes the colors too much (because of underexposure).

>>4432142
B&W is ruined by poor contrast differences, not lighting. It's still a critical element though.

>>4432228
You have to hop over to color when you're too lazy to bring a set of colored filters to control contrast in B&W*
fixed that for you

color photography = no skill snapshits (shore and eggleston did NOT prove this wrong)
black and white photography = art
autofocus, autoexposure, digital cameras = no skill snapshits
all manual film photography = art

simple as

>>4432236
retard lmao

>>4432238
mald

>>4432141 (OP)
That's just lack of no artistic direction. B&W is automatically a huge stylistic decision

>>4432236
What an absolute dunning-kruger moment

>>4432141 (OP)
This bugwoman photo is uninteresting and irredeemable regardless of what colour spectrum you present it in.

>>4432141 (OP)
This bugwoman photo is uninteresting and irredeemable regardless of what colour spectrum you present it in.
(Jannie fuck off)

>>4432141 (OP)
I do B&W whenever i shoot small bands in small venues. The lights absolutely assrape the image most of the time especially reds/blue/purples.But i dont own any filters so, i dont know what im missing out on. In bigger places or if the lights are yellowish ill do color at least for some of it. But im naturally drawn to extremely heavily contrasting images so i end up just using it pretty frequently outside of that environment.
Natural light is tough because it just depends and the conditions can change from minute to minute but you should still be able to produce serviceable images in most settings. A lot of people just cant into editing or changing their white balance. Still though, it really depends on what youre going for.
Color/b&w immediately present different "intentions" and drive peoples eyes different places. A color picture of a flower would probably leave people just looking at the overall shape and the dense colors. A black and white one would pull people more to look at the details of it but also have to be visually interesting enough of an image in the first place to get looked at. At least in my experience

I am now completely addicted to post conversions. I should just go all the way and try film.

>>4432141 (OP)
it will still be fucked in b&w, just not as much. it's because the saturation on the subject is a function of the light

>>4432141 (OP)
Only in very rare occasions would I convert a colour image to B&W; you really want to shoot to the strengths of your medium.
Reasons to would be that the colour distracts from the focus, or that the light is too bad to work with in colour.
As a colour image, this is a photo of street signs.

>>4439122
As a B&W image, it's a photo of the street itself.
Notice that the bike, cars and road markings which are practically invisible in the colour image actually become the focus of the B&W one.

>>4439123
If you were shooting BW irl you'd have a red filter, so you should compensate for that

>>4432141 (OP)
Unrelated but does anyone know the name of the model? She's really beautiful. Reverse image search leads to rawpixel. com. There are some really amazing pictures of her and I'm talking very impressive ones but no name unfortunately.

>>4441955
>Shes really beautiful.

>>4432228
If you're not shooting with the intention of a photo being black and white, you've already failed.

>>4441955
fucking simps ruin everything holy shit

>>4442095
Someone said recently that if you can't explain why colour makes your photo better, then it should be in B&W.
I think that might be my mantra moving forward.

>>4432141 (OP)
if i do a b&w shot it's just to see how it would look in b&w. If it ends up looking good i keep it
i dont rely on b&w to it look good a bad photo is a bad photo

>>4442661
Because black and white looks like shit unless you shoot it with the intention of it black and white.
Because colour photos look better.
Because black and white photos become busy and uninterpretable as soon as you're shooting at f/5.6 or higher. see >>4439123
Because humans see in colour and colours are beautiful, black and white is just an arbitrary technological limitation, now obsolete.
Because that quote was from a fat jew.
There's a few reasons for you.

>>4442737
Pack it up, boys. It's been debunked by some random guy with a clear chip on his shoulder.

>>4442737
Black and white drawings still exist despite there not being a technological limitation since time immemorial. Faggot

>>4443443
Yeah but they only exist in black and white until you or the toddler they were meant for is finished colouring them in, pussy.

>>4443520
you got "owned" pal, as the kids say nowadays. take the "L" and leave

>>4432141 (OP)
kek, that bugtograph couldn't be saved by neon lighting even
the real advice here is photograph something that's actually worth the time it takes to gaze upon it. Go to some desert and shoot the 2025 Moon Landing, for example.

>>4444120
i've tried to post basically the same thing like four times in this thread, jannie keeps deleting it lol. must be the op also.

>>4432141 (OP)
B&W exposes lacking tonality for what it is, without vibrant sat-boosted colors to mask it

Most peoples cameras and lenses are unironically too low quality for good B&W photography. You really need a low element count prime and either a modern dual gain FF (more resolution preferred, base ISOs shot at 24/7) or medium format digital, CCD, shot only at base ISO, to match the tonality of larger film.