Color Or Black And White: How To Use Them Wisely For Glamour Images

Sooner or later, any every beauty artist encounters one particular choice, which only seems to be an easy one. Easy it sounds, simple it looks, but making a certain decision is as difficult as producing a perfect picture from the very first shot. The issue is called “Color or Monochrome?”

In times of grayscale people couldn’t care less for colors – their primary concern was nuances of, composition, light and shadow. glamour photos were all black and white, still being distinguishable and artistic.

With colors becoming another vital factor of a picture’s aesthetic quality, beauty photography altered dramatically. Nowadays, when digital photography enabled photographers to reproduce millions of shades, the “bright” approach seems even more preferable.

So, let us investigate this matter and find the solution to using colors and black and white efficiently and wisely. Just as almost any dilemma in Beauty Photography, this one is mostly about the artist’s purpose, not some firmly-established rules or canons.

First of all, it should be mentioned first-hand that it is equally difficult to achieve perfect colors and perfect gray-scale image. If you think that, for example, shooting in black and white is going to make your photographer’s job easier, think again.

No matter if you shoot in color or without it, light is still your everything. Without the proper lighting the mood will be spoiled and the photograph would be flat. It always happens so. No matter if you prefer to create colorful photos or position yourself as a conservative fan of black and white, you need to mind the lighting at all times.

There are differences, of course, though they are subjective and mainly concern the impression that viewers will make of your glamourous creation. There are several issues you might consider on this matter:

• Color proves a great tool when you need to place emphasis upon something. A colorful image draws both glances and thoughts to it; you may find that composition can simply revolve around the colors of its primary objects; various colors unveil different mood to them, creating atmosphere your viewers can perceive.
• Black and white puts more stock in texture and forms rather than different tones and shades. It also makes the game of light and shadow more visible, and therefore more comprehensive. If you want to produce a subtle, artistic and powerful photo, black and white is invaluable. Black and white can as well remove tone defects which never do any good to a glamour picture – if you got somewhat strange colors on the photo, gray-scale is a life-saver.
• Different types of monochrome can also help you make an artistic picture. For example, sepia is fairly popular with photographers. There are many other techniques to try out infrared, hi-key, duotone and others. With all those how-to’s on the Internet, you can learn theory fast and then get down to practice.
• Another thing to do is combining monochrome and colors within one image, though this approach is considered unoriginal, it still can be used in a refreshing manner, can’t it? If you feel you can produce something fresh and original with the help of cliches, go for it. Viewers usually notice spots of color on monochromatic background at once, though unoriginal, they may look quite unusual, ergo attractive; black and white elements in the whirlpool of colors and tones work almost the same and may prove useful as well.

As in most cases, no way is really preferable or less challenging, both color and black and white glamour photography have their fans who never cease to discuss the advantages and downsides. Choice doesn’t even have to be made, as long as you can use those techniques efficiently to produce something of aesthetic and artistic value, you really shouldn’t bother. It isn’t methods and schools that create masterpieces, it’s people, their vision and their talents.

For Glamour Photographers