Black and white photography is the pinnacle of art

Photography was not always in color. Black and white photography has been passed down to modern masters from the masters of the past. So why is the b&w format underestimated in modern society?

The first recorded image was taken in 1822 by the Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niepce. Therefore, the first photograph in history is considered to be the “view from the window” photograph taken by Niepce in 1826 using a camera obscura on a tin plate covered with a thin layer of asphalt. The exposure lasted eight hours in bright sunlight. The advantage of Niépce's method was that the image turned out to be in relief (after etching the asphalt), and it could easily be reproduced in any number of copies.

At first glance, it would seem that what is so supernatural and difficult about this? Black and white photography is all about light + exposure, which in turn must be built correctly in order for the details in the picture to be preserved and convey the whole idea. The photographer must know not only the correct angle, but also how to catch the right light, because too much light will not lead to anything good, but will only ruin the photograph.

Many people are accustomed to considering color photography as the standard, because that’s also correct. But it is not so. Sometimes the black and white version looks much better and more beautiful. You can watch the play of shadows and light, looking at a photograph, get imbued with its history, and complete a picture in your imagination. It all depends on your imagination.

Such b&w photographs are filled with deep meaning, a secret that you want to reveal. Now many photographers are increasingly resorting to black and white photography, be it landscape, portrait or macro photography. I would like to introduce to your attention several photographers who work exclusively with black and white photography.

1) Alain Leboil, one of the most famous and popular contemporary photographers, member of the jury of the international competition 35Photo Awards. Admirers of his talent were able not only to see the photographer’s exclusive exhibition, but also to take part in a creative meeting and workshop. Alain is the author of wonderful black and white photographs, where the main characters are his children.

2) Timothy White is an American portrait and advertising photographer, creator of film posters.

3) Silvia Grave - Spanish conceptual photographer. Takes poetic black and white photographs. Lives in Madrid.

Looking at the work of these photographers, you involuntarily begin to think about some underlying meaning in the photographs. They seem amazing, mysterious, but not gloomy. The mystery shrouded around the photographs is fascinating. This is the pinnacle of art.

BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY: A BEGINNER'S GUIDE

Black and white photography is an artistic way of depicting the world around us, and goes back to the origins of photography as a genre. Long gone are the days when these types of images were the only option for a photographer. Today, this type of photographic art remains popular and in demand, and some artists consider it the most exquisite. A monochrome image can convey the brevity, beauty and emotionality of the photographic subject. The use of black, white and their shades acts as a filter, erasing distracting details and focusing attention on the essence of the image. If you want to try something new or practice black and white photography, you should first learn to look at the world through different eyes. We offer you some of the most useful tips to help you with this. Seeing the world in black and white The path to mastery of black and white photography is through developing the ability to see and determine what looks best in color and what is worthy of monochrome simplicity. Once you have this vision, you can start playing with your photos using brightness, contrast, noise, and other characteristics that can affect the final result. This may sound a bit harsh, but it will take time for you to learn to see the world in black and white.

Pay attention to light and shadow

The way light hits subjects is what gives black and white photography its expressiveness. With the right lighting, even the simplest photos become visually appealing. In the photo below you can see how a simple architectural structure becomes a beautiful geometric design.

Play with brightness and contrast

While color photography allows you to address millions of subjects, black and white photography focuses on the brightness and contrast of the images. They are the ones who give completeness to the finished photographs; The higher the contrast level, the more expressive the picture becomes.

If you don't know where to start yet, look at objects, people or landscapes that are lit in a certain way that creates a certain contrast through the play of light and shadow. The art of seeing the world in monochrome also involves the ability to value contrast above all else.

Always look for interesting textures. When a surface is not front-lit, the camera captures the smallest details that make photos look vibrant and eye-catching. Combining different textures within a frame is a good way to add expression to your work.

Choose the right shapes

Once you have mastered the basics, you can move on to a specific complication by choosing original shapes. When you observe a world devoid of color, even the most mundane objects gain visual appeal and harmony due to their shapes. Look for elements that will help you bring out the beauty of both simple and complex objects.

A New Approach to Lighting

One of the most powerful sources at your disposal when shooting black and white is natural light and the play of light and shadow. Light falling on objects and emphasizing the beauty of shapes and expressiveness of textures, draws attention to details that would escape the viewer's attention when shooting in color. Take advantage of early mornings and sunsets because every day you have the opportunity to capture unique shots.

Optimal shooting mode

To start taking black and white photos, just use the monochrome shooting mode found on most DSLR cameras. We remind you that when shooting in this way, the original files cannot be significantly edited. If you plan to use more editing options, take photos in JPEG and RAW formats.

Long exposure experiments

Using a slow shutter speed will give you a variety of shades of gray and make your photos more interesting. This technique is used when photographing moving objects, such as clouds and water. Thanks to its use, blurred motion will appear in the image, which will enhance the contrast. Experimenting with shutter speed and shooting speed will give you the opportunity to choose the best combinations to create impressive shots.

Finally, it is worth remembering that color photography shows life as it is, and black and white turns everyday life into a work of art. So, just grab your camera and go experiment with transformations using our recommendations. Only through trial and error will you discover your artistic talent.

A monochrome image can convey the brevity, beauty and emotionality of the photographic subject. The use of black, white and their shades acts as a filter, erasing distracting details and focusing attention on the essence of the image. If you want to try something new or practice black and white photography, you should first learn to look at the world through different eyes. We offer you some of the most useful tips to help you with this.

See the world in black and white

The path to mastery of black and white photography is through developing the ability to see and determine what looks best in color and what is worthy of monochrome simplicity.

Once you have this vision, you can start playing with your photos using brightness, contrast, noise, and other characteristics that can affect the final result. This may sound a bit harsh, but it will take time for you to learn to see the world in black and white.

Pay attention to light and shadow

Play with brightness and contrast

@hosseinzare

Look for textures

Choose the right shapes

A New Approach to Lighting

Optimal shooting mode

Long exposure experiments

black and white photographs

All publications about black and white photographs, new and famous masters of black and white photography.

Truce for Christmas

On Christmas Eve on the Western Front the temperature dropped below zero and there was light snow in places. The soldiers lay in silence in their positions, many drinking and smoking. When fires suddenly flashed on the German lines, the British first thought of attack. But the Germans cut down coniferous trees and decorated them with candles in a festive manner. We were all deeply touched and in a sad mood,” recalls eyewitness Herbert Sulzbach, “we were all in our thoughts.

Unknown Soldier

Robert Capa's photograph of a soldier dying in the Spanish Civil War has become a symbol of the horror and senselessness of all war. “A war correspondent gets more booze, more women, more money and more freedom than any soldier.” MILLIONS of people died on the battlefields of the 20th century - often anonymously. The death of a man thought to be unknown became a "photographic icon": a photograph of a Republican.

Inge Morath's book of photographs: a portal to the era of Marilyn Monroe

Inge Morath was one of the most prominent photographers of the post-war decade. A new book of photographs, Inge Morath: On Style, published in September 2016 fourteen years after her death, takes us back to a time when the front pages of newspapers were full of photographs of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn. Photographer Ingeborg Morath was born in Austria in 1923. When the Second World War began, Inge, who was at that time.

The secret life of cats on the streets of post-war London

Thurston Hopkins was one of Britain's greatest photojournalists. Over his long life, he created many ingenious photographs, more like works of art than ordinary reportage photography. True fame came to Hopkins in 1951 after the publication of his series of photographs “Cats of London”, which to this day delights not only art connoisseurs, but also cat lovers. IN.

17 black and white photos of happiness

Happiness is what we all strive for (at least most of us) throughout our lives. Happiness is the key to health and success in all areas of your life. And sometimes achieving happiness is not as easy as it might seem, and capturing it in a photograph is even more difficult. I suggest you look at a small selection of black and white photographs that vividly capture a moment of happiness. Have a nice day, everyone! Me and my friend Mishka.

Female beauty 100 years ago

Globalization has changed not only our view of business development, it has upended our ideas about what makes a woman beautiful. Beautiful women on vintage postcards from a century ago, from 1900 to 1910. source

The most optimistic photos from the past

Beatniks and bikers, rude boys, hippies and ravers, everyone around them: that same fun past)). And it has style. In the British Royal Army Corps.

Black and white photographs of wild animals by David Yarrow

David Yarrow is a 48-year-old Scottish photographer who lives and works in England. And his work is mainly associated with photographs of animals in black and white. We have collected for you some of his best black and white photographs taken in the wild. .

Black and white photographs of Cindy Crawford

Cindy Crawford (born February 20, 1966) is a famous American model. Cindy's trademark can easily be considered a mole just above her lips, which, in addition to her beauty, has graced hundreds of magazine covers. Men's Health magazine named Cindy Crawford one of the hottest women of all.

40 black and white photographs of the last century that you must see.

The phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words” was coined by American newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane in 1911. It's a simple concept that applies to many aspects of our lives, but especially to historical photography. Sometimes, one simple photograph can tell more about a story than any story you could read and analyze from some documentary source. All.

Why are black and white images so attractive?

The appearance of color photography in the second half of the 19th century was a breakthrough, and yet, despite a century and a half of technological development and maximum realism, color images were never able to supplant black and white.

This even works in advertising. If we take the Instagram posts of the five hundred largest American companies, then black and white filters (Inkwell, Willow) predictably close the list of the most popular ones - advertising should be bright. But if you look at the comparative effectiveness of black and white posts (number of reactions per thousand users), the Inkwell filter comes out in third place.

Volumes have been written about the appeal of monochrome images. Even in the digital age, when using camera settings or image processing programs you can get any picture your imagination desires, we are still drawn to the first, black and white reincarnation of photography: despite its obvious limitations, it seems more creative. What's the matter?

Black and white photography is timeless. She is timeless and seems to speak through generations. A photograph taken yesterday may look like he is 70 years old, and this mystery, the difficulty in determining his age, gives it additional charm.

There are no distractions. Color-saturated photographs can be beautiful, but the riot of colors is confusing and disorienting. A monochrome picture may look boring, but at the same time it is easier to place accents, highlight details, or see what the photographer wanted to say. Black and white, paradoxically, sometimes makes you really see the subject.

It's simple. But this simplicity and minimalism can make a stronger impression than a color photo. A dark silhouette against a light sky or a bright detail against a black background is catchy and evokes feelings and emotions that colors would not evoke. A black and white frame leaves room for imagination, and it makes the picture come alive better than thousands of shades.

Why does black and white photography attract the eye? Probably because a person sees the world around him in color, which means that a monochrome picture against a multicolor background automatically stands out. A black and white image is a priori somewhat divorced from everyday reality - that’s why it makes us stop and look more closely. For the same reason, such photographs can evoke a deep emotional response.

“There's certainly something to black and white that eliminates many of the distractions that color introduces,” muses legendary photographer David Burnett. – Black and white reduces the frame to what is perceived faster and easier. It contains a certain purity to which we respond even without careful examination. It will be interesting to see if people who grew up surrounded by color still have the same feelings in 30 years.”

A similar principle works in the case of painting. Pablo Picasso, throughout his long creative life, returned many times to black and white and gray images, as if reducing the saturation of the paintings. He said that color weakens, and he etched it to emphasize the structure of the work and the self-sufficiency of the form. Representatives of the optical art movement (Op Art) in the 1950s often used black and white images with repeating geometric elements to create in the viewer a feeling of illusion, confusion - a real optical shock of contrast. American artist Peter Milton, at the age of 32, learned that he was suffering from a visual impairment - he could not distinguish colors. He did not stop drawing, but switched completely to black and white images and it was thanks to his technique that he gained fame. He says black and white are "even more elegant than color." And he adds: “Unless, of course, the color combination itself is used with elegance.”

In fact, we don’t need to see colors: science has proven that when it comes to familiar things, our brain independently associates even black and white photographs with the “correct” colors. An experiment conducted in 2013 showed that if a person is shown monochrome images of bananas, strawberries, broccoli, etc. (objects that have a certain known color - yellow, red, green), the areas in the brain that are responsible for recognizing real colors are activated . Thus, black and white pictures do not interfere with the brain’s perception of such a feature of an object as color. And at the same time, monochrome does not distract from the details and evokes special emotions and memories. Looking at black and white photographs, we suddenly discover that the absence of color makes the other components of the image more intense.

It is even possible that neuroscientist Mark Changizi, a researcher of optical illusions, who writes in his book “The Vision Revolution” that black and white vision may be more “real” than color vision, is right. Most animals, Changizi argues, do not have color vision and, perhaps, the absence of colors would save us from bias in the perception of what we see.

“When I saw my color photograph, I was much more interested in the color than in the personality or merits of the person,” says the famous Brazilian photographer and photojournalist Sebastian Salgado, who now shoots only in black and white. – How can I tell someone a story with my photographs if I myself don’t feel the story in them? Of course, black and white are abstract, but between the brightest white and the darkest black you will find gray, and these are the gray tones that I saw when I took the pictures.”

Michael Kenna - master of black and white landscape photography

“Photography mysteriously combines the logic of thinking and unfettered imagination.”

English photographer Michael Kenna (©Michael Kenna) is familiar to a wide audience, primarily for his monochrome works in the landscape genre. However, one cannot narrow his creative method to landscape photography alone. In it, he is, of course, a recognized classic - Kenn’s work cannot be confused with others.

The photographer also worked a lot on commercial orders - he was approached by Maserati, Adidas, Mercedes, Dom Perignon, Audi and other market giants. But his true path is artistic photography of landscapes, man-made landscapes and everything that surrounds us in everyday life.

Michael Kenna has the ability to see aesthetics and ascetic charm in simplicity, and severity and grandeur in the gloom of industrial “scenery”; in everyday views of nature there are shades of mood indescribable to anyone else. All the photographer’s works are united by a common style - they are black and white, very intimate, with a print size of 30x30. There is no place for people - only nature and man-made structures speak to the viewer in mysterious languages. The author and his camera “translate” these statements for us.

Features of Michael Kenn's works

Kenna believes that photography needs to be explored alone. This explains the fundamentally small format of his photographs. He adheres to the same rule in his work - he photographs and processes the frames himself, sometimes inviting his only assistant. Most of the author’s photographs were taken at long exposures—sometimes night exposures take up to 10 hours. Since the mid-80s, he has been working with medium format Hasselblad and Holga cameras, which explains the “square” nature of most of his compositions. Almost the only exception to the rule were the photographs from the Monique kindergarten, for which the photographer used a 4x5 camera.

Michael Kenna captures the “ethereal” light for which the photographer’s work is famous at dawn or dusk. At the same time, the photographer is not afraid of grain and even loves it. He himself says that the fierce struggle with imperfections that many modern authors are passionate about amazes him. The grain for Michael is the strokes of paint, from which the painting begins to breathe and comes to life. Kenn has a favorite time to work: night and dusk. He learned the peculiarities of lighting during these hours and the techniques of working in the dark himself, accumulating experience for many years.

The work was not in vain - Kenn’s style and photographs are known to both professionals and a wide audience. His penchant for long exposures helps him produce fantastic images that are recognized by professionals and gallerists around the world. Michael Kenn's works are exhibited in famous museums: the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Tokyo Photographic Museum, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Patrimoine photographique in Paris. In 2000 he became a Chevalier of the French Order of Arts.

The photographer has published more than 20 books, which feature photographs taken around the world - from the snow-covered landscapes of the Japanese island of Hokkaido to the picturesque Italian landscapes. Viewers are struck by the combination of intimacy and internal tension - the special, bewitching style of Michael Kenn's works. The photographer’s characteristic creative style began to form during his English childhood.

How the style was formed: biographical touches to the portrait of a landscape painter

Michael was born in 1953 in the north-west of England, into an Irish working-class family. He had five brothers and sisters. As was expected according to strict Catholic customs, and the family adhered to them, until the age of 17, Michael attended theological seminary, intending to be ordained a priest. However, fans of his work were lucky: Kenna abandoned this idea and decided to enroll in art school. This is what he did at the age of 18, despite the protests of his family.

At the Banbury School of Art, the young author received his first full-fledged training, although even before enrolling he achieved success in painting. But it was in this establishment that Michael began to become acquainted with photography. Subsequently, he began to develop a “commercial vein”, moving to London and entering the College of Printing to study graphic design. After graduating, he moved to San Francisco in 1977 and saw the United States for the first time.

In America, Michael continued to work in the landscape direction, while simultaneously working for the press, recording studios, theaters and learning from his colleagues. He showed his works in galleries, where he met the famous Ruth Bernhard, who made the promising author her assistant. It was she who introduced Michael to her methods of photo printing, processing, and developing films. Bernhard showed the young photographer how, by juggling negatives, you can find a lot of creative opportunities. Kenna owes much of his unique artistic style to Ruth.

After moving to California, Michael began to travel a lot and traveled to the most remote corners of the world. The result was not long in coming - just two years later, his first personal exhibition outside the UK was organized in Washington. At the exhibition, Michael presented photographs of Italian cities. Later he worked on Easter Island, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Russia and many other countries.

Today, the photographer lives in Seattle and continues to improve his unique shooting technique. The photographing process itself sometimes takes very little time. Kenna considers the laboratory processing of the film to be the most important stage, thanks to which the nuances that distinguish Michael Kenna’s photographs from the rest “appear.” The photographer edits his work a lot, experiments with photographs, using filters, highlighting areas of the photo with light and muting the tone in others.

Anyone can get acquainted with the fruits of creativity - in October 2017 alone, Kenn is hosting eight exhibitions in several Italian and American cities, as well as in Istanbul and Tokyo. He does not refuse interviews with journalists, signs books for fans and is still open to the world and its beauty.

Photogora video channel

Black and white photography. 5 common mistakes.

Black and white photography has been around for about 180 years, since Louis Daguerre introduced the daguerreotype process to the world. It is still very popular despite the development and simplicity of color photography. And yet, whenever I look at other people's black and white photos, I see the same mistakes over and over again. Do you allow them? Let's find out!

Mistake #1: Shooting in JPEG format

Oh! This is a big mistake. This is the worst thing you can do.

Difference between RAW and JPEG

To understand why, you need to appreciate the difference between Raw and JPEG. Raw files contain all the information received by the camera sensor. A Raw file is not a finished image. It must be processed (using software like Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw) and converted to a JPEG or TIFF file to be usable.

You can think of a Raw file as the equivalent of a negative (as in film photography). You can't send a Raw file to a photo bank or magazine, just like you couldn't with a negative. First the Raw file needs to be processed (or the negative developed and processed).

The JPEG file is created using the camera. It takes the information recorded by the sensor, processes it (as you would with Raw files in Lightroom, but according to the camera's built-in settings), compresses it, discards the unused information, and saves it as a JPEG. These files don't necessarily need to be processed in programs like Photoshop or Lightroom, although most can be enhanced that way.

The benefits of shooting in RAW

Using the Raw format gives you the following benefits.

Control: You process the file yourself rather than leaving it to the camera. You can make it your own from a stylistic point of view. Using Raw allows you to interpret a file in as many ways as you want. Using JPEG means that the file is interpreted in only one way - the way the camera does it.
More data: A Raw file contains much more information than a JPEG , especially in the highlights and shadows that you can pull out during processing. The additional information helps prevent streaking in areas of smooth, continuous tone, like a clear sky.

Using Raw helps you get a processed version of the "before" image shown above. With Raw , you can increase contrast and make the sky darker without streaking or ghosting on the edges of buildings. This cannot be done JPEG files

A few more benefits of shooting in RAW

Sharpness Settings: JPEG files created by your camera have sharpening settings . You can change tonal values before ghosting and artifacts appear. Yes, you can turn off the JPEG sharpening setting in the camera - but how many people bother to do this?
RAW format contains color information: Raw files contain all the color information captured by the sensor, so you can create a color version of a photo in Lightroom, Photoshop, etc.

Using Raw gave me the ability to create both color and black and white versions of the same image using Lightroom without losing quality.

Improvements: The software gets better every year. The versions of Lightroom or Photoshop in 5 or 10 years will be much better than they are now. By using Raw, you can take advantage of these new tools and process your image again in the future.

So please do not use JPEG format for black and white photography.

Mistake #2: Trying to save photos by making them black and white

Black and white photography is not the way to salvage poorly executed color photographs. If your image is bad in color, it will be bad in black and white (though there are always photos that look better in black and white for compositional reasons).

There's nowhere to hide in black and white. In color, if the lighting or composition isn't as good as you'd like, the emotional impact of color can save the image (or, depending on how you look at it, hide the flaws). Black and white images rely on factors such as tonal contrast, textural detail, line, and strong composition.

This is why some photographers consider black and white images to be a higher art form than color photography.

The texture in this photograph is fundamental to making the black and white image work.

Mistake #3: Incorrect photo processing

Before digital cameras and Lightroom complemented each other, many photographers used professional printers to print their images. Creating the highest quality black and white prints in the darkroom is very difficult and often only done by professionals.

Therefore, photographers concentrated all their time on photography, and entrusted printing to specialists. Probably the most popular professional printer in Britain is Robin Bell, who has worked with such famous people as David Bailey, Terry O'Neill and Eve Arnold.

These days, it's much easier to create beautiful black and white images in programs like Lightroom, Photoshop, or Silver Efex Pro 2 than it is to master the chemistry of the darkroom. But unfortunately, many photographers fail to master the basics. As a result, their black and white photographs are not as beautiful as they could be.

Take the time to learn how to use the software correctly and your photos will improve.

This before and after example shows how the photo looked straight out of the camera compared to the final version processed in Lightroom . Learn how to mix and match to get the most out of your black and white photos.

Mistake #4: Not shooting in the best light

One of the advantages of black and white photography is that you can often shoot in lighting conditions that are not suitable for color photography. For example, on a cloudy day, you can create a beautiful seascape using a tripod and a neutral density filter (this is called long exposure photography). Although for a color image you would have to shoot closer to sunset or sunrise to get a nice scene.

But some people use black and white photography to shoot in lighting conditions that simply aren't suitable for their chosen subject. Using black and white photography is not a solution to the problem. Matching light to subject is an important skill. It will take some time, but it is very important to learn. Don't be lazy just because it's a black and white photo.

Long exposure photo taken on a cloudy day. The light matches the subject - on a sunny day it wouldn't work.

Mistake #5: Lack of a strong composition

Black and white photography is a true test of your composition skills. The best monochrome images contain visual elements such as tonal contrast, texture, line, shape, pattern and negative space. The emotional power of color can hide flaws in a composition. But in black and white photography you can’t hide anything. It is necessary to have an understanding of how to effectively use the building blocks of composition.

To see them, you need to study. For example, you won't be able to use lines in a composition until you learn to see straight, diagonal, and curved lines in a scene.

The good news is that once you understand the basic concepts of composition in black and white photography, you can instinctively apply them to color images.

I very carefully composed the composition of this landscape. It contains a point of interest in the foreground and lots of texture - important elements in a black and white landscape.

"The Art of Black and White Photography"

Specialized practical video course

Sign up for a course

Course volume: 16 video lessons
Overview of the history of black and white photography
How to learn to “anticipate” a picture
How to correctly convert pictures to black and white
Perception without colors and advanced
techniques for processing B&W photographs
Bonus: Operations for creating
brightness masks in Adobe Photoshop

Watch this video course and you will learn how to take stunning black and white photographs in various genres.

You will get acquainted with the history of black and white photography and learn to see the picture. You will learn how to correctly convert pictures into black and white, how to emphasize the main thing in the frame and achieve the desired effect during processing, and much more.

Photos from video tutorials:

Let's start with the history of photography, study a variety of interesting world-famous authors and plunge into the atmosphere of photography. Let's talk about the psychology of perception, learn the secrets of the magical appeal of photographs by world masters. Then let's move from theory to practice and you will discover a completely new world that will simply change your idea of black and white photography!

In this course, I'll introduce you to both simple and advanced techniques for creating black and white photographs, including working with luminance masks. And as a gift, you will receive a set of actions for automated work on creating such masks in just one click in Photoshop.

By the end of this course, your black and white photos will look great!

One of the students in my course wrote:

“Hello, dear Eduard. At one time, I purchased your training courses on portrait and black and white photography. Unlike many other similar training lessons, your tips and tricks, your experience and teaching methods helped me a lot in my professional growth as a photographer.

As proof of the above, I provide a link to the website of the photo competition, in which I not only took part, but also took several prizes (https://ru.photoawards.com/winners/).
I “appeared” in the category of non- professionals.

I think that without your lessons I would not have been able to learn the intricacies of black and white photography at this level.
With gratitude and best wishes, Refat

I am very glad that after my courses, my students collect awards at serious photo competitions, and in batches at that! I sincerely congratulate you and wish you further victories and success!

And for those who learned about this course for the first time today, I recommend watching the video clip below and familiarizing yourself with the program.

See you in class!

Author and course teacher

QEP - Qualified European Photographer. Certification by the Federation of European Professional Photographers (FEP)
Member of the Association of Professional Photographers of America (PPA - Professional Photographers of America)
Member of the Guild of Advertising Photographers of Russia and the Union of Photographers of Russia

Syllabus

Start training right now!

STUDENT REVIEWS:

There are simply not enough words to express my gratitude. ) Thank you very much for another excellent course, which I watched in one go. ) Now you need to train and put all the tips and techniques into practice. ) And again, special thanks for the actions, they save a lot of time. Like everyone else, I’m really looking forward to the next courses! )

Edward, I would like to say a special thank you to you for the course on black and white photography. It is simply amazing, the photographs taken after studying this course were not even close to what I did before) Brightness masks work wonders. I look forward to your new courses!

I purchased the course “The Art of Black and White Photography.” I really liked Edward's teaching style. Everything is clear, understandable, laid out on the shelves.

It’s always been interesting why some black and white photographs are so “catchy”. I tried filters, presets in Lightroom, and the saturation slider in Photoshop, but I got ordinary gray “photos”. I asked some acquaintances, they readily showed their “masterpieces” with sepia thrown over them and all the questions disappeared by themselves, and gradually there was hope of someday understanding black and white photography. If this sounds familiar to you, then I share my joy: after Eduard Kraft’s course, everything changed!

First, the first few lessons focus on how famous masters took their famous photographs. Along the way, Eduard examines what made these photographs unique, how the perception of a photograph changes when the color disappears and only light and shadow remain. Well, an important skill is how to see depth in black and white images, how to see it in advance, looking at the colored world, even before pressing the shutter button.

Secondly, generally difficult techniques are revealed in an easy and understandable way. Then I decided to google it for comparison, and so, video tutorials on the Internet, even already knowing about this method, seemed to me much more complex, plus many important nuances in such lessons “forget” to pay attention, while in the course a separate section is made on such details accent, everything becomes simple and clear, and most importantly, you try it right away - and it works!

And thirdly, and most importantly, all the methods and techniques are not given in abstract examples, but in those very photographs that “catch you”! And when you watch over and over again how from a gray chamber raw you get first a color and then a black and white magical picture, it’s unrealistically inspiring!

Edward, thank you very much for such a super high-quality course, I watched it in one go and I will review certain moments more than once, as, by the way, in the portrait course.

Edward, thank you! You are simply a genius! To make something so complex so simple and easy to understand, as they say right away. Excellent course, I fully agree with everyone who has already written here. Not only knowledge, but also inspiration!

This is the coolest course! After watching, I wanted to practice even more so many techniques and skills... this course especially has a lot of secrets. Thank you, Eduard!

You can rest assured that we will win those world competitions that you are talking about in the course! I want to say that now there is a lot of information on photography on the Internet, but I know that you need to learn from a master who truly loves his job! After studying the courses, other photographers tell me that in a year I learned everything that they studied for 10 years and all thanks to your courses! And this is the first site where I trust reviews. These are real people, just like me. Thank you again for the black and white course, now I can take on a black and white project and not be charged! I wish you success! We are waiting for new courses!

Thank you very much for your work. All courses are great. It is very interesting to develop with you.

Just a great course! Everything is very clear and understandable. Lots of nuances and information. Excellent quality, video and sound. For those who are still thinking or doubting, buy and learn, you won’t regret it.

Great course! I became interested in black and white photography and now I do it completely differently, more consciously! Thank you, Edward! This is your second course after portraiture!

I am delighted with all of E. Kraft’s courses, like previous commentators; I will briefly add: always interesting, understandable, and the presentation is complete. And I don’t mind either the time or the financial costs. I recommend to all! You will not regret. Many thanks to the authors of the course for their professionalism in presenting the material! I hope for new courses.

Many thanks to Eduard and the entire team of course creators. Very useful and, most importantly, interesting!! Sometimes I watch it several times so that nothing slips through the cracks - it’s very good. comfortable!!