 Great black-and-white photography doesn't come from fancy processing, but from the secrets of these seven great photographers are going to show you today. How's it? How's it? Black-and-white photography isn't simply just a photograph that doesn't have any color. It's not just hitting the desaturate button in Photoshop and expecting that to be a great black-and-white photo. No, it's far more than that. And these seven photographers that we're going to look at today are each going to teach you a lesson about how you can improve your black-and-white photos. So we're going to start with the OG of black-and-white photography and that is Ansel Adams. And the reason we're starting with him is because he put in place the zone system and the foundation of the zone system is seeing the world in black and white to learn to see it not for the color that is all around us but for the black and white tones that make up the objects that we see. And as soon as you start doing that, you're going to start to see the world in a whole new way because black and white is not the same as color. I know it seems to be an obvious statement, but black and white, the tones, the way that things work together are completely different when you are taking a black-and-white photograph. So when you are out there next time taking photographs, don't wait until you're in bridge or in Photoshop or Lightroom, and decide then you're going to make a black-and-white image. Make a decision when you have your camera, when you are out there taking photographs that you are going to photograph in black and white because as soon as you start doing that already your photographs are going to become stronger and they're going to have more punch and more meaning and depth to them. And that's the real key to great black-and-white photography is to see the world in black and white. When you start seeing the world in black and white, then all of the other upgrades that you get in black and white photography start falling into place. The next upgrade that you get is this idea that color influences the way that we see a photograph, the emotions. And you've often, you've probably heard that phrase that you're going to, you must photograph in black and white because it is the absence of color which allows emotions to come through. And of course that is completely true. And W. Eugene Smith was a great example of this. If you look at these photographs of his very famous photo essays from Life Magazine, see what they look like. How do they feel to you? How would they look different if they were photographed in color? Would the story, would the emotions be as strong or would the color influence the way that you perceive these things? Look at all these photographs from the Pittsburgh Steel Mills. The flames and the heat and all the everything that was been going on. It would overwhelm the human aspect. The next time you're out there trying to take black and white photographs, you need to remind yourself that the color is going to be absent. So it's not going to carry the photograph in the same way. So you need to peel back the layers of the color, see beyond, peer back through the curtain and let the story come through. Let the subject shine in the photograph. And we'll get on to that point later on about how to isolate the subject. As soon as you start seeing the world in black and white, then you start realizing that there is light and there is shade in a way that there isn't in color. And Fan Hope is a master at working the light and the shade to letting them dance together. It's a fantastic way. And you don't really get this in color photography because of various boring reasons like when you put color next to a darker thing, it makes the color different. But with black and white, they are ying and yang, but they work together. The light and the shade become one. And you can use this to create wonderful interplays in a way that I don't think you would get in color, that look at this photograph, there is these shards of light streaming down, they're punching into the darkness. And that strong contrasty feel is so different than, you know, just hitting desaturate. So don't be afraid of this play between light and shade. Be embraced contrast because contrast is really what makes black and white photography come alive. It's I feel that plays a far more important role than it does in color photography, because it makes the image feel more graphic. And as soon as you start thinking about graphic shapes and interplay between light, then you understand the real power that black and white photography has. This power is best illustrated through a photographer called Sebastian Salgar. Now his black and white epic, and I am right in using the word epic here, because his photographs are truly epic, show real power in them, that not only is it, you know, the scale of the things he's photographing, but because they're in black and white, they have, and I hesitate to use the word biblical, but they have almost biblical nature to them, that it's far bigger than if it were photographing color. I think with color, there would be too much going on. There would be too, too much of an assault on our senses, whereas in black and white, we see the mind worker, we see the mind, we see all of them together. But yet we cannot tell where the mind ends and the worker starts, where the worker ends and the mind starts, they become one and the same. That is a fantastic way of using this kind of odd epic quality to black and white that I don't feel that you do get with color. So if you're out there, you know, embrace the epicness, embrace the whole timeness, if you wish, I want to call it that, of black and white and understand that like, you know, with Fanho, the contrast is a friend, you can also use it to smush things together, because you're not having these very defined areas that the mind can understand that you got, you got a subject and then something else. Very broadly speaking, that's called isolating the subject, being able to sort of, you know, have the subject stand up. And in black and white photography, you need to be mindful of this, because when you photograph in color, the color is all different. So they help bring the subject apart, they, you know, they're separate, just like with the salgada. If we photograph in color, you would see all the individual mind workers. So when you photograph a person, for example, I have a light skin tone. So in, in black and white photography, my skin tone is a lighter shade. If I were against a light background, I would blend into it. I would be I wouldn't be isolated. However, if it was a darker background, then I would stand out and you need to be aware of this in your black and white photography. One of the big pitfalls is not understanding that you can't just rely on the color to separate things that you need to be mindful of how people and the subjects are all interacting with each other when they are all shades of the same tone of black or white and everything in between. So if you are looking to isolate subject, a black and white is a fantastic way of doing this. And you just have to look at some of the photographs that have been up on screen to see how you can bring the subject out and make them really stand out. But yeah, do be aware of what is there, what's behind you, what's in front of you, what's around the subject. So that you are not losing the very thing that you want to be photographing. If you'd like to help out your other photographers who may enjoy this kind of content, then please do hit the subscribe button below because that way YouTube sees that you like this enough to subscribe and it will show this kind of content to other people who may not have found it. So if you want to help out your fellow photographers, hit subscribe. Ezra Stoller, more than most, understood the power of black and white to highlight and isolate shape and form and texture in his architectural photographs that he created in the 1950s and 60s. These photographs were awesome because they showcase the efforts and the way that an architect has brought a building to life. Some of the things that we just kind of dismiss, when they are now in black and white form, they are far stronger, they're far more obvious, and they're highlighted and brought out of these giant edifices that a lot of people just don't give a second thought to because it's a place of work for them. So when you're out and about, look at the shape and the form and the textures and think about how you could incorporate that into your black and white photography. What would happen if you photograph that thing that you see that you think, oh, this because should be aware of the interplay between tones that is going to give you and highlight these shapes and these forms because that's really what's going on here. It's not the shape and the form is magically made by black and white photography, but black and white photography is highlighting the shape and the form within the great thing that you dismiss every day as being humdrum and ordinary. Anton Corbett was, or is, a rocker. And when he was young, he didn't have the money to buy lots of different film stocks, to photograph at night, nightclubs and music venues and during the day. So he was, he bought the fastest black and white stock that he could possibly buy. So he could photograph in any situation. And this is something, again, that I feel that black and white benefits us from. And when you photograph black and white, you should embrace this is restricting us or not restricting us, but removing options. We don't have to worry about color balance, right? And that whole different color fish, right? We don't have to worry about how the color is going to interfere things. We don't have to worry about so many things that we do when we photograph in color. So we can stop worrying about those things and concentrate on the matter of hand, which is creating a photograph. I feel that when we photograph in black and white, it's far more of a beginning to end process rather than in color, because in color, we tend to just take pictures and then muck around in Photoshop, but in black and white, if you don't get it right in camera, if you don't get it right initially, then no amount of mucking around in digital in post is going to fix it or create a great photograph. So when you are out there and you're photographing in black and white, you've made that decision to photograph in black and white. They were looking for light and shade and shape and form and texture and all those sort of things. Be embracing the freedom that you get from not having to worry about all the stuff that color chucks on top of us that we need to deal with. There's a photographer who's kind of fallen out of fashion and nobody ever really talks about her anymore, but image and cunning him, I feel, is probably the best exponent of all these techniques that we've talked about up until this point because she puts them all together in one image. Now each photographer we looked at, I've highlighted one aspect, but if you look at the flowers and the cactuses and all of the work of Imogen actually, you see everything we've talked about in play. The way that the shape and the form is highlighted, the textures are highlighted, the graphing is that interplay of light and shade to give you interestingness. The way that flowers can be in your face because they are bright, that's their whole function is to be bright and attract things, but now you strip the color away. They are wonderfully delicate things that aren't punching us in the face, but they are becoming like sculpture. So that's a wonderful example. I would highly recommend that you spend some more time looking at Imogen, Cunningham's photography because if you want to improve your black and white photography, it's not just the case of looking at photographers who photographed in black and white because they're not the same thing. There are some photographers who were required to photograph in black and white because black and white was all there is, but there was one photographer who we're going to touch on now who photographed in black and white because of a choice because of something that was forced on him and I believe that this is a technique that a lot of us struggle with and should embrace. There was a great photographer whom I haven't mentioned, that's Edward Steichen, I really think if you are into black and white photography that you should go and check him out, I will put up the link over here. Thanks ever so much.