Too often, a photo’s vivid color captures our attention and we neglect to realize and appreciate the true detail in a photo. In photo contests, I often wondered how many winning photos would have won if submitted as a monochrome (black & white) photo. Look back at some of the historic photos published in Time, Life and Look magazine (now I’m dating myself!) and you’ll see they were black and white. Black and white photos captured a moment in time, reinforcing the content and what the photographer was trying to capture.
Here’s a great example of how black and white shows the age and character of a portion of the Basilica in Newark, NJ. The building, standing 196 ft tall at its highest point, is largely made of hand carved stone. The horizontal gargoyles are actually 14ft in length. When you take a moment to really study the detail it’s hard to believe that this was all done by hand!
This photo was originally shot in color as 1 RAW photo using an early sample of the new Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1. I used the 14-140 lens from the DMC-GH1 to compose the view I was looking for from across the street. I also used a polarizing filter to darken the cloudless October sky. Final processing was done in Photoshop using Nik Software’s Silver Efex
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