6. What are the advantages of black and white photography?

The first photo most people take may be in color. Intuitively, color photos are much easier to take than black and white photos, because the effect is more like what you see in the viewfinder. Of course, photographers must consider some differences between the appearance of objects and the results of color photos. However, on the whole, it is easier than predicting what monochromatic color an object will become.

Perfect black-and-white photography is far more explanatory and subtle than color photography, and it is not so natural and realistic. It is for this reason that black-and-white photography has become an artistic expression of photographers, which is more common in "excellent works" and gallery exhibitions, and it is easy to be associated with black-and-white photography in the past. On the other hand, professional photography is mainly color photography, except news photography such as newspapers (because most of the pictures it reproduces are still black and white).

The material and developing process of color photos are much more complicated than that of black-and-white photos, which is why the reliable developing process of color photos was discovered almost 100 years after the advent of photography. Even at present, color development is still an expensive and laborious application. So before the 1970s, photographers mainly learned the skills of black-and-white photography and gradually developed into color photography. Today, a large number of complex chemical problems in color photography are closely related to the film, photographic paper, pre-prepared solution and standardized development procedures in the factory. This is mainly because the requirements of color printing are higher than those of black and white printing, because color balance needs foreign identification and control. Therefore, it can be seen that at least in darkroom work, it is better to take black and white photography as the starting point of learning.