-This month’s challenge theme-
Black and White
Each studio, in collaboration with their studio reps, created images they felt best fit the theme.
Richard Parker, TX
richardparker.io @richardparker
In Frame: Lauren Poole @Lp_1e
HUMA: Amy Pearce
Black and white photography. It’s an artform of photography that many people take for granted. Using tones of gray, ranging from white to dark, black and white photography allows the artist to create imagery that sparks emotion and imagination. Ansel Adams said it best when talking about the differences between color, and black and white photography.
“I can get a far greater sense of ‘color’ through a well-planned and executed black and white image than I ever achieved with color photography.”
Planning for black and white photography is different than planning for shooting in color. A few important elements to consider when shooting black and white are shadows, contrast, tones (which is a cornerstone of black and white photography), shapes, texture, composition and perhaps most important, emotion.
For this shoot with Sydney, we started with as little color as possible. Both her outfits were white and black, aside from red in one of her pants. The super sweet Corvette was black and white, with touches of red on the brake pads. The abandoned garage that I found was mostly graffitied in black and white. Even the second location downtown on the top level of a garage, was a lot of muted shades of gray. We played with shadows and contrast, and most importantly, a wide range of tones, also known as high-key and low-key. We had lots of shapes and textures to work with that allowed us to get creative with composition. And finally, emotion… emotion was the easy part for Syd! She nailed every shot with a lot of different feels and looks.
Black and white photography. Condensing an image or story down to its simplest meaning and stripping away all the distractions and unnecessary noise. It’s where it all started after all. And sometimes it’s nice to get back to basics.
(Of course, you won’t see any red in these photos of Sydney. I mean hey, they’re black and white after all! 😉)
Gretchen Higgins, NV
gretchenleigh.com @GretchenLeighPhoto
In Frame: Elysia Teruya @elysiateruyaa | Taryn Encinas @taryn.encinas | Raina Reid @seraina.reid | Taylor Murphy @taylor._.murphy | Alexa Field @alexa.field2 | Stefanie Schmidt @stef.schmidt | Abby Keith @abbyy_keith | Sydney Espinoza @sydney.mariie | Verenice Garcia @vere_1011
Black and white images allow you to play with the story and light so much more than images in color. When I see high contrast in light and shadows, I can visualize the Black and White image too. Creating a black and white image also allows the person viewing the image to be transported, uninhibited by extra information.
Jody Rael, Las Vegas, NV
jodyraelphotography.com @JodyRael
In Frame: Maddy Pettigrew @maddypettigrew • Sofia Forrest-Turner @sofiaforrestturner • Ariana Gaminara @ariana.gaminara • Amaya Williams @amayawilliamssss • Paula Koller • Matthew Kaspar @kaspar.matthew
Concept/Set Designer: Mindy Brunkhardt @mindybrunkhardt
HMUA: @soyella.co
Black and white and read all over!
Black and white photography is powerful and emotional. We chose to take a different perspective on the challenge of “black and white” and focused words. Newspapers — nearly the first form of social media and an ancient method of news-getting — provided our inspiration, along with the classic joke, “What is black and white and read all over?”
Like the joke, we twisted the word “read” to be “red” – and added a pop of color against the nearly-black and white background of the newspapers and the reps’ outfits.
We had so much fun with this concept as it allowed us to create a new room in our studio. We also wrapped furniture and props in newspaper (a tedious task). Jasmin, our amazing hair and makeup artist, coordinated each reps’ look with their pop of color. The reps went above and beyond in their outfits and posing, studying editorial fashion magazines and blogs, and completely rocked out our vision.
