9 Tips for Capturing Powerful Black and White Portraits

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but if you are a black and white photographer looking to make a big statement, you need to know every trick in the book. Below are nine of the most tried and true tips and techniques any photographer can use to capture powerful black and white portraits.

1. Train Your Brain to Recognize Contrast and Tone – When you remove color from a portrait, the two main elements that remain are contrast and tone. An experienced black and white photographer can see these elements instinctually before snapping a shot, and with enough practice, you too can train your brain to spot the perfect black and white scene. Try dedicating an entire month to the art of black and white photography and see how quickly you develop this “monochrome vision.”

2. Shoot in Low Contrast – While many color photographers prefer to shoot in bright, well-lit areas, low contrast situations present excellent opportunities for black and white portraits. Never be afraid to shoot on dark, gloomy and overcast days if your goal is capturing contrast and tone. Once you realize the benefits of these conditions, you will probably even prefer them to clear blue skies.

3. Focus on Areas of Contrast –The human eye picks up two main elements, color and light intensity, which helps our brain distinguish one thing from another. In the absence of color, our eyes become more sensitive to light intensity, giving us the ability to recognize areas of contrast. Since your viewer will naturally pick up areas of contrast in your portraits, it is your main objective to make your points of interest with shades of gray. Use contrast to help your viewer decide what is important in your shot and choose areas of naturally high contrast to accent your point of interest. Use adjustment techniques when post-processing your portraits such as levels, curves, layer blends, burning and dodging to improve contrast distribution even further.

4. Look for Areas of Interesting Texture – Texture is a form of contrast that becomes a dominant point of interest in a black and white photo. Color essentially adds a layer of complexity to a portrait, often taking away from the beauty of natural texture. For a powerful black and white photo, look for interesting and embedded textures while focusing on specific surfaces of patterned contrast. Irregular patterns of shadows and highlights tend to yield the most visible texture in a shot free from color. Accentuate these embedded textures further during black and white conversion in post-processing.

5. Shoot in RAW – Many amateur black and white photographers avoid shooting in RAW, either because their camera will not allow it or simply because they do not like to do it. However, shooting in RAW provides for the most control in postproduction, especially when converting color images to black and white. Give RAW a shot and you may be surprised at what develops in the postproduction phase.

6. Enhance Your Shots with Color Filters – The use of color filters is a common technique among professional black and white photographers in order to change the original captured tones of a portrait. A scene depicting substantially dark and overly white areas is usually not a product of a natural shot. Use color filtering during postproduction to manipulate tones and achieve your desired result.

7. Shoot with a Low ISO – Noise created by ISO can become particularly obvious in a black and white portrait. Always shoot with the lowest possible ISO to reduce noise, even if this noise is what you are after. You can always add noise (or “grain”) to your portrait in postproduction but it is much more difficult to remove it.

8. Focus on Composition – If you are an amateur photographer at best, you probably understand the importance of framing a good shot to lead the viewer’s eyes into and around your point of interest. When color is not an option for a point of interest, such as in a black and white portrait, train yourself to look at composition elements like tones, textures and shapes instead to grab the attention of your viewer.

9. Shoot in Color – Never shoot in black and white if your camera can shoot in color. When you shoot in black and white, your camera is actually converting a color scene to black and white. Photo editing software does a much better job of removing color from an image, so it is always best to capture your shots in color.

Post processing software also gives you areas of flexibility unknown to traditional methods of converting color to black and white, such as relying on your camera make the conversion. Software like Nikon's Capture NX2 and Adobe Light Room provide a full-featured non-destructive editing programs and are a powerful tools for fast and easy photo editing. Shadow and highlight adjustments and D-Lighting features provide for excellent black and white portraits, correcting tones of shadow or dark backlit images with superior quality and processing speed.