Black & white

The vast majority of pictures taken these days are in colour. Of course, in the very early days of photography there was no colour film, so photographers had to convey their messages using tone and contrast in black and white images. Now we are saturated with colour photos, and it is increasingly uncommon to see black and white images. Even newspapers have colour photographs now. Black and white is still used occasionally in portraiture and weddings, and by a few fine art photographers. But the average photographer rarely uses the medium.

Some images are just made for black and white reproduction. I made this photograph from a shot I took this morning not too far from my home. I call it "Petrol Pump Prison". A company that installs and repairs pumps for use in service stations has a number of them in a storage facility surrounded by a chain wire fence. I thought that they looked like prisoners lined up for a roll-call! They might have been locked up for price gouging fuel, I suppose. A larger version of the image can be seen here.

Anyway, I only ever saw this picture in B&W. My camera captured the image in colour, and I made the conversion in Photoshop to obtain the picture that I had planned. When looking "photographically", I try to think not only in colour, but also in B&W - and sometimes black and white is better.