Are your photos missing that special something? Emotion, impact, feeling?
Try this simple trick. Make them black and white. This works especially well on a close-up portrait.
Here’s why: in the days of yesteryear, black and white film enabled the photographer to capture greater detail in the light and shadows than color film. This is called its range of latitude.
Black and white film has the greatest range of latitude, actually, black and white negative film (slides) do. This translates to a greater range of detail in the light. It enables your eye to really focus on the subject.
With the advent of digital photography, we don’t really have that benefit from black and white film, but the simplification of the shot can still be achieved.
The photo above is nice. It shows a father and son posing for a photo. The clothes seem a bit distracting though. Let’s fix that by making it black and white.
Our eye focuses more on their face when the photo is black and white
Better, but we can simplify still further. Let’s see if we can focus our eye on their faces and really drive home the focus of this photo.
Cropped photo of father and son
Most photo editing software offers simple cropping and B & W filtering for color removal. The goal of any photo is to clearly convey what was happening when you snapped the shutter. Removing (cropping) distractions from this emotional essence – the elbows, knees, clothing, and at times, color – helps capture the tone and focal points of the scene.
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