[Photography] Black and White Still Life Photography: How to Do It (And Why It Matters)

The post Black and White Still Life Photography: How to Do It (And Why It Matters) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.

In the quest to improve your photography, sometimes the best approach is to slow down, concentrate on the basics, and be purposeful and deliberate. Working in black and white will do that. Making still life images will do that.

Combine the two, and you get black and white still life photography – which is an excellent way to make some great images and become a better photographer while you’re at it.

One of my most successful images of all time is this very minimalistic monochrome composition. It taps into the power of black and white and still life.

The power of monochrome

I will often use the terms monochrome and black and white interchangeably, but there is a subtle difference.

Black and white photos are just that: images with tones from white through black and all shades of gray, but with no color information whatsoever.

A monochrome image, on the other hand, might have a color tint. For instance, you can create a warm, sepia-toned shot or a cool, cyanotype photo. A single color – with various shades – would be present in the image.

A sepia-toned image is monochrome, but not black and white in the purest sense.

But note that this article applies to both black and white photography and monochrome photography equally.

Why black and white?

Early photographers had no choice because they couldn’t shoot in color. Monochrome images were all they could make.

Of course, this ultimately was not a serious limitation; many of the most iconic photographs ever taken are black and white. Surely even non-photographers have seen what might be one of the most famous black and white still life photos of all time, “Pepper No. 30” by Edward Weston. And I can confidently say that Weston’s photo would not be better if it had been made in color.

Today, the default choice of most photographers is color. Because our world is in color – as are most of the photos we encounter – “seeing” in black and white is a skill you must develop.

You must learn to look at a subject with an eye toward the basics – the “bones” of an image, if you will. Shape, form, tone, and texture are those bones, and the best black and white images play to those strengths, where color is unnecessary and even a distraction.

Is this the yellow brick road? Perhaps, but the strength of the shot is “good bones” in all the areas monochrome excels: shape, form, tone, and texture. It also utilizes some good compositional elements. Color is not needed.

Learning to see in black and white will, of course, make you a better black and white photographer. But if you can see in black and white while recognizing and taking advantage of the structural elements of a subject, you’ll become a better color photographer, as well.

Color then becomes an enhancement to an already-good image – one with a solid “bone structure” of shape, form, tone, and texture.

Why still life?

My two favorite genres of photography are probably still life and landscape.

Why?

It could be because they are so opposite. In landscape photography, you can rarely move the subjects in your scene, you compose by where you stand, and you don’t have much control over the light. Often, you must wait for the light to be just right, and you must be ready if and when such a moment happens.

The elements, the layout, the composition, the lighting, the camera position; you’re in control of everything when you make a still life photo.

Still life photography makes you the master. You set the scene, deciding what to add in and take out. You arrange the objects for the best composition, you choose the camera position, the lighting, and any additional components comprising your shot.

Then, when you’re satisfied and ready, you take the photo.

In a word, still life photography give you complete control.

Where can you find subjects for black and white still life photography? Where can’t you?! How about the silverware drawer? Here are some creative still lifes with a few forks.

You might also find good still life subjects in the vegetable bin….

…or get back to the “roots of photography” with a subject like this.

When considering subjects for black and white still life photography, remember what gives an image “good bones:”

Shape, form…

…tone…

…and texture.

Then add another distinct advantage. Consider this definition:

“A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, etc.).”

A real advantage of still life photography is that your subjects are still. They don’t move.

So in still life photography, it won’t matter if your shutter speed is 1/30s or 30 seconds. Being able to have such flexibility over your choice of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO is huge, and it opens up all kinds of possibilities that other genres of photography don’t offer.

Light painting is one of those unique possibilities. Since you don’t have to deal with a moving subject, you’re free to “paint” a subject with light during an extended exposure.

And this makes for some dramatic still life shots:

A still life subject that doesn’t move lends itself well to light painting. If you need a 15-second exposure and still want to stick with ISO 100, it’s no problem.

Lighting

Lighting for black and white still life photography comes back to the advantage we already identified:

Control.

The lighting instruments you choose, the modifiers you use, the number of lights and their placement – it’s all within your control.

Let’s break this down a bit more:

• White balance – Since you’re processing in black and white, you can ignore the color temperature of your lighting instruments. And this frees you up to use all kinds of light sources, from flashlights, LEDs, and daylight to candlelight, fluorescent lights, and incandescent lights. Yes, as you convert an image into black and white, the color tones will respond differently. But you can handle adjusting your black and white tones if your white balance is initially off. I’ve often “rescued” impossibly bad color images simply by converting to black and white.
• Placement – We spoke about the “bones” of shape, form, tone, and texture, which exist in all photos but are more readily apparent in black and white. In black and white still life photography, you get the opportunity to accentuate these “bones” with your careful consideration of lighting placement and control. Want to emphasize texture? Rake a hard light across the subject from the back or side at a low angle. Do you want a soft look? Try a broad light source, like a softbox, that illuminates the subject from the front. You can light your subject to create the look and mood you’re after. As the saying goes, “No rules, just right.”

Want to create some dramatic texture? Use a single hard light source – in this case, a simple flashlight – and rake it across your subject’s surface from the side.

Or you could have the low, late afternoon sun backlight your subject, again to emphasize texture.

A camera trick to help your visualization

In order to make this trick work, you must shoot in RAW.

(Also, I highly recommend you shoot in RAW all the time. Here’s why this is important.)

Now, when shooting in a RAW format, your camera will always capture a color image (and that is what you want).

The playback image you see on the rear LCD, however, will not be the RAW file. Instead, it’ll be a JPEG representation of the image.

So if you want to get better at seeing in black and white, why not switch the JPEG to black and white while keeping the RAW image in color? That way, after taking an image, you can immediately see it in monochrome – but you’ll still keep all the color details for post-processing later.

Bruce Wunderlich, a fellow dPS writer, describes how to set up your camera to do this. He promotes it as a way to better compose color photos, and it is good for that – but if monochrome is where you’re headed, it’s even more beneficial.

So read Bruce’s piece, set up your camera accordingly, and you will have a real aid in making black and white photos.

A still life doesn’t have to be a tabletop object, nor must it be shot under artificial light. This agricultural implement was shot outdoors in bright sunlight. The story of the shot is the repeating patterns. The yellow and red colors of the machine would only have distracted the viewer. Having my LCD set to preview the image in black and white helped me visualize the shot!

Editing for black and white

After a session of black and white still life photography, you’ll bring the images into post-processing as RAW color images.

Color?

Yes. Even if you’ve set up your camera using the recommendation above – where the LCD displays your images in black and white – your actual RAW images are still in color.

That’s a good thing. It’s during editing that you will convert your photos to black and white.

This will allow you to determine how various colors will be converted to monochrome. For instance, back in the black and white film days, you could darken the sky by shooting with a red filter. Because the red filter would block most of the blue light, the sky was rendered very dark on the black and white film.

Today we can create those effects during editing. When converting from color to monochrome, you can adjust the luminance of specific colors (e.g., you can darken the reds, the blues, and the yellows), thus affecting the overall look of the image.

Lightroom offers a nice black and white conversion tool, and there are a number of good articles on black and white conversion in Lightroom, such as this one by Andrew Gibson. You may also wish to try other methods of black and white conversion. A popular option is the Nik Silver Efex Pro plug-in from DxO, but there are dozens of other programs and methods for converting from color to black and white.

Without the limitations of having to make the color in a photo “look right,” you are free to creatively take the tonality in your black and white images wherever your creativity leads you.

The original image at left; a black and white conversion with boosted green luminance in the center; a black and white conversion with decreased green luminance on the right.

Age your photo

Here’s another fun black and white still life photography trick:

Replicate a vintage black and white look!

First, make sure you find the right subject. I recommend working with old collectible objects. Then capture the shot and enhance it afterward with effects such as sepia toning.

It can be a fun and instructional exercise to gather some objects, set up a pleasing composition, light it, photograph it, and create a monochrome file complete with sepia toning.

Collect some items to create a theme, make your still life black and white image, then edit it to produce a “period look.”

Take your “aged” still life even further with some special effects!

Gather some objects, decide how you want to set your scene, light it, take your shot, then go for an antique look with a sepia tone.
Canon 50D | Canon 50mm f/1.8 | 1/15s | f/22 | ISO 800

Black and white still life photography: Now go do it!

You can and should read up on the concepts and techniques of photography, but there’s only so far “book learning” will take you.

Black and white still life photography will slow you down, make you think, concentrate your efforts, and force you to really study things.

You just have to dive in and do it!

So gather some subjects, decide how to arrange and light them, determine where you want to place your camera, what focal length you will use, how you will expose the image – all of those things.

Think about what you’re doing, what you’re trying to communicate, and why you’re making the photo.

Take your shot, evaluate it, consider what might make it better, and shoot it again.

Then repeat! There’s no hurry. You’re making photographs, not taking snapshots. You are the master when you practice black and white still life photography.

And that, as they say, is the beauty of it. Go make some great shots!

As always, leave your comments, questions, and photos in the comments section below. Best wishes!

This was shot outdoors after the early morning dew beaded up on this lupine leaf. I put a piece of black cardboard behind the leaf, then did some further clean-up in the edit.

The post Black and White Still Life Photography: How to Do It (And Why It Matters) appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Rick Ohnsman.

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