Romantic Vision: Black and White Tips
Just one of the romantic images in the Polylooks database
Valentine’s Day is not far away, prompting a rise in demand for romantic images to accompany articles, blogs and marketing materials. As well as red hearts and cupids, nothing captures the romance of Valentine’s Day like a black and white photo.
Despite its origins, black and white photography is rarer nowadays than the more commonplace colour image, making it more unique and, in the absence of colour, heightens the emotional context. That’s why so many wedding photos are still taken in black and white, even though colour photography has been widely available for decades. It adds an air of mystery and nostalgia.
Top Tips
Firstly, when shooting black and white photos, don’t set your camera to black and white if your camera gives you the option – shoot in colour on the RAW format and convert to black and white using a photo editing suite to avoid any potential loss of quality.
If you’re looking to capture romance in black and white, think about your composition. What do you want to use to illustrate romance? Is it couples? Rings? Hearts? If it’s a portrait, really narrow the field to focus the viewer’s eye on the core elements.
Contrast is an essential part of taking black and white images. When colour is taken out of the equation the focus shifts towards light intensity, so contrast really helps your image stand out.
The use of light is critical when shooting black and white. Romantic shots need to be sensual, not necessarily bright but, when using shadows, don’t make them too gloomy. That’s the challenge with black and white photography – finding the right balance – you don’t want a white out in the same way as you need to avoid overshadowing.
With black and white photography you can do so much more with texture than with colour, because the eye is forced to focus more keenly in the absence of colour. Play around with soft settings if you’re looking for that slushy feel!
Shopping for Images
If you’re looking to buy black and white images for Valentine’s Day, or any other event for that matter, make sure you log onto Polylooks.co.uk and use the colour and emotion filters available on the site to select the right look and feel for you. Also, use key search words such as ‘love’, ‘romance’ and ‘Valentine’s Day’ to ensure you get a wide choice of relevant stock images.
Then you can start looking forward to using microstock images in your features, blogs, or – if you purchase the merchandise license – to use commercially, such as creating gift cards.
Polylooks has nearly half a million images on offer so there’s plenty of choice!
In the old days one used to learn photography by taking B&W negatives, processing them yourself and then making enlargements with a projector and batches of stinking chemicals.
Black and white photos