Black and White or Colors?

It is sometimes difficult to make a decision if a photograph looks better in colors or in blank and white. Every one has ones own view about it. So do I. I follow some generic guidelines for this.

Black and white gives more depth to a photograph due to capability to carry more contrast. Whereas you cannot use that much of contrast in a colored photograph, due to color saturations. If you want to show old age effect, historical buildings, rustic effect, too many shadows or depth in general, better choose black and white. They look more thought provoking without colors. If you want to show flowers, parties, celebrations, something depicting life, cheer and vibrations, better choose colored photograph.



Portraits:
In case of lonely portrait or very close ones, B&W looks pretty good. In case if it is taken in a group or in party, better keep it colored.


Landscapes:
Normally landscapes look better in color, but if depth is important, black and white could serve better.


Now, what about something in between? Neither B&W nor colored.
Believe me it is a lot interesting to play with very less colors, as it has characteristics of both, colors and B&W. By reducing color saturations and increasing the contrast, you can achieve both depth and colors in the same photograph. Take a look at some of the examples.




A photograph is like a poem, it should be read in a particular manner to feel it best.

Finding frames in a photograph

I think selecting the right frame is one of most challenging part of photography. I used to spend a lot of time just finding the right frame for photographs to carry real impact of my subject. But what is my subject? Sometimes even that is difficult to decide. Spending too much time on these, sometimes may lead to loss of opportunity. So what to do?

Thanks to high resolution, high zoom cameras. Now at least my time to search for right subject and frame is reduced drastically. This is how now I am able to manage real time photography with desired output.

1. Select the frame what comes first in mind. Try shooting the broader picture covering this frame, so that you don’t repent later for missing out any details.

2. Now load this photograph on computer. This is the time to think about frame and subject in detail. You may like to perform some rotation, crop operations to achieve what you really looking for.

Well that sounds easy. But the real challenge lies in finalizing the frame. In general, I believe any photograph cannot so bad that cannot produce any good frame out of it. The basic requirement remains that it should be sharp and big enough to play around with.

Let us take an example. Following original photograph captures a lot of details including tree, leafs and girl having fun. Due to moving subject original photograph was little asymmetric.



A minor crop operation can make it symmetric. Well, it should be kept it mind that making symmetric does not mean that subject should be exactly at the center. Mostly it should be horizontally balanced. Vertically, main subject should be towards one of the edges. Normally try to put visual center of gravity of subject at around 1/3 distance from bottom. (or from top, in case of flying or hanging objects).



Now, this is good enough frame. But in this case there is no clear subject. Nether the girl nor leafs nor tree itself. It is shared by all the objects appearing in the photograph. If objective is to show autumn and a girl having fun in it. This is an appropriate frame. It would look pretty good in a poster size print.

In case you want to emphasize more on the girl and want to focus on how she is lost among leafs, try this frame. This would look pretty good on a post card.



Now try this frame, it is more close to the girl, emphasizing more on her facial expressions and looses quite significant amount of surrounding effect. Hence it more looks like a girl having fun in general, not specifically with autumn leafs.



This way I have three good photographs out of one shot. In general there can be numerous frames trimmed out of a photograph making it flexible to choose appropriate one for an occasion.

Now check out these examples, how reframing can change the impact of a photograph.