When to Shoot in Black and White: Tips and Apps for iPhoneographers
I collected in a list situations in which b&w is a better option than colors. Here are apps that will help you doing black and white iPhoneography.
Nowadays lots of people love to take pictures in black and white. Many times, they don’t really shoot in b&w, but simply apply effects to their photos. I think shooting in black and white requires a lot of study, but you can really improve your shooting simply remembering a couple of things when you are about to hit the shutter. First of all, you should consider when and why to opt for this style.
Shapes and lines, which are great tools to improve composition in your iPhoneography, perform very well especially in black and white, because the eye of the viewer will focus on forms and wont be distracted by colors. The same is true for textures, that you can bring in the photo while shooting or also add in post production, using apps like the wonderful Mextures ($1.99) by Merek Davis.
Sometimes when you focus on a subject in a scene with a lot of contrast, i.e. many dark and bright zones one close to the other, you can capture viewer’s attention by using black and white to enhance details. Vice versa, in flat lighting colors work better.
In bad weather conditions, like in a rainy day, it’s hard to put your subject in the light. Stating that when you are shooting it’s all about light, opting for black and white gives you the opportunity to focus attention on your subject and getting an intriguing sky in the background, thanks to the clouds and the little light they let to pass through.
If you are shooting people, with b&w you can emphasize highlights and shadows on their faces, much more than if you were using colors. In a matter of fact, colors attract attention to each part of the scene, while black and white focus on subject. So it is very helpful when you are shooting a crowded scene. More over, b&w make people stand in front of the backdrop, while in a colorful photo, especially in sunny days, backdrop could suck the people.
If you were shooting a scene that says “this is the moment when”, you should consider to opt for black and white to emphasize the action. Just look at the scene as if you were the reporter of an ancient glorious newspaper, ready to turn your photo in a news. The trick here is to make the light follow the scene: hit the subject and then continue on a line or in the direction of a movement.
I don’t know why, but usually black and white images appear to be more serious, more fixed in time, or history. So if you want to give your shot a sort of absolute value, go b&w.
Apps for shooting in b&w
If you like to take great shot in black and white, the most important thing is to think in b&w. In a matter of fact,our brain sees in colors and pretty doesn’t know about grey scale, typical of b&w. Thinking in black and white means you have to imagine how the entire scene would appear in a grey scale, which part of the image would be completely white and which ones dark, where details would be enhanced and where lost.
As when we use our iPhone to shoot we want to take it easy, consider using an app that allow you to solve this problem. There are a lot of apps that let you preview the result image. My favorite is perhaps MPro ($1.99), especially since the developers simplified the controls menu. You can choose between five sort of films, calibrating contrast and use a color filter, while separating focus from exposure, with the option to lock both of them. More or less the same features are present in Hueless ($2.99), but it has a more complicated menu and don’t let you split focus and exposure. Another superb app is 645PRO ($3.99) by Mark Hardacker. It comes with four b&w films, in addition to a lot of color films, each one customizable to your personal feeling. 645PRO let you apply colors and neutral filter too, while both MPro and Hueless are limited to a few colors. All this apps let you use different grid and formats.
You can also opt for Hipstamatic ($1.99 + in-app purchases) which has a couple of great films, but wont let you preview the result image and will constrain you to square format. Hipstamatic has a hard learning curve, but once you become a little bit expert you can get extraordinary and emotional shots. Keep in mind that you can crop the image later, so don’t give too much importance to the square format.
Apps for converting colorful pics in b&w images
Obviously you can shoot normally, for example using my favorite app Pureshot ($1.99), then convert the photo in b&w with apps like Simply B&W (free) or a more sofisticated tool as B&W Lab ($1.99), which let you choose between beginner and advance mode (I really love this second one because it lets you calibrate highlights and shadows). It is worth a mention also Dramatic Black and White ($0.99), which enhance contrasts, and Noir ($2.99) that gives you the ability to apply a wonderful vignette controlling contrast, light focus zone and edges. Indeed my favorite editing app is Vsco Cam (free + in-app purchases) because it let you apply specific presets for each situation, enhancing your photos without subverting it.
In the mid still stand Vint B&W MII ($1.99), the really first black and white camera replacement app, updated fro the iPhone 5 in march, 2013. It just gives you the option to shoot in b&w, than the app produces rich blacks and vivid contrast automatically. It allows you also to import your pics, but you have no other option like set different focus and exposure, grid and so on.
this is a personal project with two goal: learning how to better shoot with my iPhone and improve my English. Every feedback and correction is welcome.
