One blog I follow The obvious and hidden has beautiful black and white images. I feel inspired and at the same time reluctant to leave the medium of colour. In this the digital era it is so easy to move from colour to black and white and back. Autumn is like a second spring when every leaf turns into a flower, my heart thrills at the colours of the changing leaves like natural fireworks.

leaves
Black and white can accentuate images with distinct lines, shapes and patterns – colour can be a distraction away from such compositional elements.

Autumn in black and white
We naturally see the world in colour, so viewing everyday objects rendered in monochrome is often a novelty for me. Yesterday, I visited a local cemetery, my camera has creative settings such as “dynamic monochrome” and “one point colour” (this is black and white and one chosen colour). These statues were naturally white and black so rendering the whole image black and white was no great adjustment of the scene.

Vake Cemetery Statue

Woman weeping
Black and white can make the image appear as if it was taken in a bygone era many years ago, rather than just yesterday or last week.
It gives the image a more timeless quality, it can also be considered “cool”, though I’m not sure why. Pictures of Hollywood Stars from the past in black and white look “cool” (think of those iconic black and white images of James Dean, Marilyn Monroe or Marlon Brando).
I mentioned “one point colour” , this would seem a halfway house between monochrome and colour.

grave using one point colour (here red)
The red of the flowers and some red on the gate is seen in an otherwise monochrome image.

colour

black and white

Autumn Leaves (one point colour)

Zaporozhets wreck in colour

Zaporozhets in black and white
I think I need to experiment more with monochrome. Photographers, for what reasons would you choose to make images in black and white?