What happens if you change your photo to Black and White?

The choice between black and white, or color can be tricky.
For me personally I sometimes shoot something with the intent to make it black and white. But then when I see the results I often keep it in color, because I just love the way it looks. And what happens if you change your photo to Black and White?

Sometimes you might shoot something that is very colorful and you don’t even think about black and white. That’s why I post this today. Luckily with digital, we can of course do both 😀

The horror clown is back!

Well she was here just 2 days ago, so she was not really gone 😀
But as you could have seen in the previous blog post about the horror clown, the color was pretty colorful. So this is the kind of set where you might not immediately think about a black-and-white conversion, but…. think about this.

Black and white doesn’t just mean we take out the color.

In fact, you can still manipulate the colors via the H(S)L adjustments in Lightroom. A bit like in the old days photographers did with filters. We can now manipulate images to our hearts’ content in our RAW convertor.

The idea of black and white in this setting is not to take out color but to inject a lot of mood and make the images more creepy. And that’s the cool thing about black and white. I sometimes make the joke

“if you mess up a shot, add a lot of contrast and noise, make it black and white, and voila instant art”

It sounds weird, but it’s really true.
If we look at a color image that is just slightly out of focus or has a shadow that’s not 100% correct in color we immediately see this as “bad”. But make it black and white and we see it as mood, or we don’t even notice it. Now that doesn’t mean that all my images that are black and white are “bad” images of course. But some street photography images have been “saved” that way in the past 😀

But let’s first take a look at the original blog post about the horror clown.
Now that you have seen the color versions, let’s go to black and white.

change your picture into black and white

As you can see the images get a totally different vibe and look.
For me even more creepy than the color versions.

Learning all about lighting in our workshops

For me teaching the workshops is not all about lighting.
Personally, I think there is a lot more than just lighting or a cool/fitting backdrop.
A good photo is a cooperation between the model and the photographer. So coaching and making a model feel at ease is vital. But after that, the real creativity comes into play, and during the workshops, I try to focus at least 80% on creativity.

This can be with lighting, but also with the storytelling part.

As mentioned in the previous blog post, working in “super creativity” model can enhance your skills way above the level you would achieve if you only shoot what you are hired for. Plus if you can shoot images that your client is not used from you it could very well be that he/she asks for something a bit more creative.

Storytelling with a horror clown (in color)

For me, storytelling is always a vital part of my photography.
Even when I photograph a CEO or artist I always try to dive into the person/product/company to get something that really fits their company/person perfectly.

And sometimes you just go all out.

The fun with workshops

Teaching workshops is one of the things I love the most. Working with a group towards a result and in between explaining all the techniques, and ideas, work with styling, poses, and of course props. The images you are going to see today might not be something you shoot every day, but… and that’s the thing a lot of people miss.

If you can walk 10 km with ease, it’s no problem to walk 2-3 km.
This might sound a bit weird, but this works for many things.
If you can shoot super creative situations, and know how to handle your lighting, poses, and how to coach your model to do the most bizarre, weird, or awesome stuff it becomes MUCH easier to coach a CEO or to shoot a super creative image for a product.

Storytelling

In today’s blog post the results from one set with our model Felisa.
And although you don’t recognize her, the choice of model is vital for these kinds of shots.
One might say, she is just wearing a clown suit and props, so what’s difficult?

When you take away the expression in the face, it’s all about body language, and believe it or not this can be incredibly difficult for a model, and photographer to pull off.

I think she did great.

So let’s take a look at some images first, and then I explain a bit more.

let you model try to grab the camera and it looks really scary

The idea of this shoot with the horror clown (in color)

I don’t really like to repeat myself, but sometimes ideas are just so much fun and open for changes that you can repeat them with a fresh outcome.
Many years ago I was invited to introduce a new Phase One 101MP camera in a studio in New York.

Let me first say I love New York so the prospect of shooting in a studio there is always exciting.
The problem was that I “had” to use a gray seamless background for some images and that day I didn’t feel like using that so I decided to just place the model behind it, cut a hole, and let the model just stick her head through and later hold the camera. Great shots and loads of fun.

A few years later I did a similar thing during a trade show in the UK. Both were more fashion and fun-related.
For this workshop, we wanted to do something completely different, and as a horror fan, the idea quickly popped into my head that it would be awesome to shoot it with a killer clown.

Getting props to tell the story

I already did something with a big knife in the past so this time we wanted to do something a bit more “big”.
A hammer is fun, but what about a chainsaw, with a little bit of a hint to my all-time favorite actor and character Bruce Campbell/Ash.

Of course, we needed some backlighting and smoke.
So I used a Geekoto GT400 in the back with a large reflector and red gel.
The reason I’m using a large reflector is because I needed a lot of light due to the seamless paper. If you would use a gelled softbox it would not emit enough light to pull this off.

In the front we experimented with a softbox and a striplight with a grid, you can probably spot which is which 😀

So let’s take a look at the rest of the images.

If you also want to visit one of my workshops and learn all about light and storytelling? Check www.frankdoorhof.com or www.photography-workshops.eu
We will be in The Netherlands, Belgium, and the UK this year for events and workshops.