Black and white photography master class: eliminate color interference, refine contrast, texture and rhythm of light and shadow

1. Black and white subtraction philosophy: sublimation from ‘recording reality’ to ‘formal purity’

Color photography records the appearance and color attributes of the subject, while black and white photography strips away the visual noise of color and forces the viewer to face the purest essence of photography: light, shape, geometric lines, texture and emotional tones.

• Shooting black and white is by no means as simple as pulling the saturation slider to 0 in post-production; a good black and white photographer has already opened the "monochromatic vision" in his mind before raising the camera, and can keenly capture the boundaries of light and dark and the gradient of gray scale;
• Directly switch the camera's in-camera creative appearance or photo style to [Monochrome/Black and White (Monochrome)], allowing the EVF viewfinder to directly present a pure black-and-white grayscale world, forcing yourself to think about composition with pure tones on the spot.

2. The emotional aesthetics of High-Key and Low-Key

The distribution of the center of gravity of the tone on the histogram determines the psychological tension of the picture:

1. High-Key Black and White (High-Key):

• The histogram has a large area of highlights in areas VII to IX, with pure white and light gray accounting for more than 70%, leaving only a trace of dark black outlines;
• Emotional code: ethereal, pure, sacred, minimalist, and elegant; suitable for snow scenes, high-light backlit portraits, and misty landscapes;

2. Low-Key:

• The histogram sinks into deep darkness from Zone I to Zone III over a large area, and a large area of rich, inky black and dark gray wraps the picture, with only a dramatic narrow side light illuminating key parts of the subject;
• Emotional code: mystery, power, depth, vicissitudes of life, harshness; suitable for portraits of old people with wrinkles, tough architectural textures, and partial close-ups of night scenes.

3. Grayscale replacement physics of black and white optical filters (red, orange, yellow, green)

The most amazing optical tools in black and white film and digital black and white grading:

• Law of Physics: ‘Transmit own color and block complementary color’ (A filter will make objects with the same color as itself appear brighter and whiter in black and white photos, and make colors that are complementary to it appear darker and darker):
• Red Filter: absorbs the blue light in the blue sky, turns the original light gray sky directly into a deep and dark sky with thick colors, and the white clouds are ready to emerge like a three-dimensional relief! Dramatically increase dramatic contrast;
• Yellow Filter: The most natural humanistic scenery fine-tuning filter, slightly darkening the sky and making the skin tone softer and translucent;
• Green Filter: Greatly brightens the light gray levels of trees and grass, distinguishes the faint layers in dense forests, and darkens red skin tones. It is suitable for sculpting tough outdoor portraits of men.

4. Digital black and white post-processing: black and white mixer and local engraving (Dodge & Burn)

Create masterful black and white tones in Lightroom or Photoshop:

1. B&W Mixer channel spectroscopy: By individually dragging the eight color sliders of red, yellow, green, cyan, and blue, you can accurately control the light and dark gray scale of the original color after converting to black and white (for example, pull the blue slider down to -50 to darken the sky, and pull the orange slider up to +30 to brighten Asian skin);
2. Local Dodge & Burn: Use a soft-edged brush to weakly dodge and brighten the subject's high-light receiving surface (Dodge), and deepen and darken the cluttered background (Burn), just like a classical darkroom master using his hands to shade and add light on top of the photo paper, giving the two-dimensional plane an unparalleled sense of breathing and three-dimensional sculpture.