What makes effective black and white photographs? Is it the subject, the light, the composition? Take a series of black and white photos, explaining why they are effective.Christy's pictures are here and Carol's are here.
I've been mired in a deep photographic slump ever since I arrived in Kellogg back in November and upon my return to Maryland in mid-December. Part of it has to do with the cold weather and my reluctance to go on walks with my camera when it's so cold. So, I've been sitting on this assignment for about three months and I am thinking that posting this and getting the weight of not doing it off my mind might help free me up to get back to doing some shooting. These are the only pictures I took while in Kellogg.
For me, black and white photography is effective because there are no colors to distract my attention from the nature of the subject in the picture. So in portraits, if they are in black and white, my attention goes right to the qualities of the person, not to the color of their hair or the colors they are wearing or anything else. Although these pictures don't show it, I love taking black and white pictures to experiment with light and shadows.
If these pictures of bunnies and a raccoon and a toad on Mom's back deck make you smile or even laugh, then these pictures are effective. You might smile because you find them sweet or endearing. You might find them kind of silly, in a good way, and laugh or smile at that. But, whatever your response, I hope you'll find that the nature of these figures, whatever you find them to be, free of the distraction of color, comes through.
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