black and white

In the same way, a photo with a lot of colored elements in the background, even in the blur, will attract the eye and divert the attention of what is really important in the image. The black and white will help to purify the image, to make it easier to read. Some consider black and white not as a choice of photo processing among others, but as a creative technique in its own right, a directive technique in this case. This is to show without embellishment, not the reality, but the message of the photographer. Black and white is the return to fundamentals.

As mentioned above, the reading of a photo is guided by its composition, by the graphic elements that compose it. I'm talking here about geometric shapes, guidelines, distributions between dark areas and light areas. This graphic language is facilitated when the color is absent. The absence of color also makes it possible to pay attention to the texture of the surfaces, the grain of the skin, the volume of the materials ... The color betrays its time. The instagram filters of the 2010s, the screaming tone mapping of the 2000s, the uncertain white scales of our first digital compact, the yellowed polaroids of our childhood, the sepia of our grandparents ... If you are passionate about photography and you have seen thousands of images, it becomes easy to guess the age of a color photograph without other clues.

Conversely, apart from the yellowing of a poorly preserved paper, a black and white remains a black and white. Only the elements of the image will betray the time of a shooting, the dress, the design of objects ...