What are the characteristics of black and white photography?

White images are more abstract, while color images are relatively more concrete.

Black and white images are more artistic, while color images are more descriptive.

Black and white images are more conducive to expressing lines, while color images are relatively weak.

Characteristics and functions of black-and-white images

Black and white photos have their own merits. Turning a colorful world into a black and white world is a miracle in itself. Photography was first presented to the world in black and white. The color of black and white photos seems to be single, but it is actually composed of three color levels: black, white and gray. These three color levels include all kinds of colors that human eyes can see or even see, such as red, green, blue, yellow, magenta and cyan, which form different color levels, so that we can experience the texture and hierarchy of the material world in black and white. Compared with color photos, black-and-white photos are concise, simple, implicit and imaginative, and have unique advantages in visual communication.

The author believes that in today's colorful paper images, some themes are more suitable for black and white photos, including wars, disasters, coal mine production and so on. Because people are extremely sensitive to colors, each color will give people different psychological feelings, and each color is branded with feelings. Black, white and gray have their own unique emotional language in news photography reports: black is deep, vigorous, dignified and solemn. In the process of news photography, if we consciously use the black material on the scene and let it occupy most of the space of the picture, this photo will present a heavy and sad atmosphere. In the World News Photography Competition, many photographers are reluctant to give up the black-and-white images of wars and disasters because they know the emotional characteristics and ideographic functions of black. In their view, only black is helpful to express their psychological feelings about war and effectively convey the emotional information in the mirror to readers. For example, "Photographs of the Iran-Iraq War" is a war theme. The author creates a great sense of heaviness in the picture with thick black smoke from the shooting scene, which strongly expresses the psychological feelings of the author, the parties and the readers. It is undoubtedly the best way for the author to accuse war crimes by showing war scenes in black and white photos. Gray in black and white photography has a variety of emotional colors, simple, calm and cold. It is not only an indispensable emotional language for some news photos, but also an important pigment that connects black and white to create image texture and vividly display the characteristics of things. The emotional language expression of black and white photography color itself is rich, and it is not its only function to express the coldness and heaviness of things. If we are faced with a relaxed and beautiful news scene, we can selectively use white (bright lighting space+white material image) to make the picture into a "high-profile" photo, which can not only get a fresh and unique picture, but also get a pure, elegant, elegant and imaginative picture realm.

Is black-and-white photography blind or rational?

After 1980s, color movies became popular in China, and we were able to compare black and white with color. In the 1990s, digital cameras were born and popularized, color images were born, and the living space of black-and-white photos was reduced. In this situation, black-and-white photographers have to think rationally, truly understand the emotional characteristics of black-and-white images and shape the space of news things, and give full play to the advantages of black-and-white images.

In order to carry out black-and-white photography rationally, photographers are required to analyze the essence of things at the news scene to see whether color images or black-and-white images can best express the spiritual trend of things and express the theme of news photos. Only by comparison can we choose the image type accurately and achieve the expected goal.

In order to take black-and-white photos reasonably and reduce blindness, we should observe the color changes in the scene before shooting, and predict the visual effect and picture atmosphere produced by transforming realistic color scenes into black-and-white images. If a photographer has no color foresight, it is difficult to grasp the tone and interest of news photos.

Reasonable use of black, white and gray levels of black-and-white photography should also analyze the color distribution before pressing the shutter to judge whether the color relationship in front of us is conducive to the conditions of black-and-white photography and whether black-and-white photography is more expressive than color photography. By actively combining colors in the news scene, we can shoot a picture form with personal style, but the form must be organically combined with the content and ideological theme.

News scenes about people and animals are mostly dynamic news, and we should also observe how to use colors dynamically. The same dynamic news theme, in the color stream, may sometimes be suitable for color images, and sometimes it may need to be expressed in black and white images. If color is used instead of black and white, it will dilute the emotional color of the picture and weaken the expressive force of the news scene in the picture; or vice versa, Dallas to the auditorium

How to optimize the use of black and white photos

Optimizing the use of black-and-white photos is to select chemically sensitive silver salt images according to the dominant consciousness of themes and pictures and the author's emotional expression, control the tone of the pictures in the best state, make the level and texture of the images fully appear, express news things with the richest emotional language, and let readers chew the cultural charm of news photos. This is a hard professional index, which is difficult to operate. Today, when color images are dominant, black-and-white photographers must do so, otherwise it is difficult to stick to the only black-and-white position.

When it comes to the quality of news photos, we always think of photographers in the past and ignore other operational links related to communication effects. A news picture must go through editing, printing and other links from making to finally entering the reader's sight. A high-quality visual information needs the three-dimensional cooperation of producers, editors and printers. Without any operational standards, it is impossible to push black-and-white photos to "optimal use".

As a producer (reporter or correspondent), we should study the modeling language, emotional language and relational language produced by the combination of black and white images, the emotional characteristics of the main images, the influence of peers on the emotional trend of the whole picture, the influence of environment on the atmosphere of the picture, and analyze the living conditions, social roots and direct or indirect relations between the natural environment and things in the news scene.

Picture editing is the patron saint of quality, and the quality of information conveyed to readers is also directly related to editing. As a media editor, you need to use your eyes to find excellent black and white photos, and set the appropriate layout to make good photos easy to use.

As for the printing process, from a photo with excellent image quality to printed matter, there is a process of quality conversion, which includes plate making and printing. Any neglected monitoring link will lose the texture level of the original image, and even change the contrast of the original image, so the image clarity, charm and appeal of the image that finally meets the reader will be discounted. Although electronic monitoring technology has been adopted in image printing, computers are not omnipotent, and people need care and careful conditioning. Skilled workers who don't understand the texture level and cultural connotation of news photos and lack professional literacy will also hurt their image. Therefore, printers need to cooperate with photographers and photo editors to formulate a set of specific, visible and tangible technical standards for image plate-making and printing.

How to face the timeliness of black-and-white photography

Timeliness is a problem that all news photos with different colors must face together. Nowadays, black-and-white photographers especially need the concept of timeliness, because there is a speed difference between black-and-white photos and color photos: in reality, the number of pixels of professional digital cameras is as high as100000, which has been able to meet the needs of news dissemination. When you take a color image with a digital camera, you can see the finished product immediately. The author can also use a notebook computer to sort out the essay on the spot, and send the picture information to the photo editor's mailbox by online mail within 10 minutes. It takes two hours at the earliest to take news photos with black and white film. If the news scene is far from the darkroom, it will take more time. The process is so tedious and slow that it can't compete with digital color images in timeliness. To this end, photographers who are keen on black and white photography can improve timeliness from the following two aspects:

First, there is no need to make photos after the black and white negatives are developed, and they are converted into digital images through the "bottom scan" of the scanner. This operation can not only keep the characteristics of the silver salt image relatively, but also enter the "PHOTOSHOP" image processing system, quickly and accurately adjust the tone contrast, adjust the level of dark and bright parts, and then send the photos online to the mailbox of the editorial department through the computer. The production process is omitted, the tone adjustment of the picture is finer than that of manual enlargement, and the black-and-white image (negative film) with silver salt properties is retained, which can be used at any time for news photography competitions, news photography exhibitions and personal photography achievements exhibitions.

Second, take black-and-white photos in the black-and-white mode of the digital camera. Some advanced digital cameras have a "black and white" mode in the menu. Starting this mode to shoot news photos can maintain the same transmission speed as color photos, but there is a gap between digital black-and-white photos and silver salt black-and-white photos in terms of texture, gradation, contrast, black-and-white charm, etc., but it can provide a choice for black-and-white photographers and a feasible measure to deal with news aging.