Black & white street photography in large city offers a very wide range of subjects. B&W instead of colour can add a much more dramatic look to your image. It can be catching a solitary moment of reflection by one person while another only feet away outside a wall is hustling down the street, each unaware of the other. There are millions of moments, each different and unique, that you can choose to capture in your city. If you stop to look that is. Carry your camera with you, you never know when the moment appears, I always have my camera with me.
Set Your Camera to B&W
Try shooting an entire day in B&W to see if you find more drama in everyday life, after all black & white images are fantasy, it is not how we see the world everyday with our own eyes. I often take a camera for a walk knowing everything I shoot that outing will not be in colour. Setting your camera to a black & white settings will change your viewfinder and lcd to a B&W view on most cameras helping you to see new ways of capturing images. If you shoot raw, those files will still be in full colour.
If capturing the decisive moment is not your thing then you might capture something that was created by another person like a unique building or one man’s castle built as a statement such as in the B&W image of the homeless man’s castle at Toronto City Hall. There are creations and statements all around you, there is never a shortage of people, places, things or moments to capture if you look.
My Camera Settings Are Often Set to B&W
A huge advantage of today’s digital cameras is that all the raw files are captured in colour non matter what your settings so any software you use to digitally develop these images will offer you numerous B&W conversion options so you always have a final choice. I mostly shoot for street and often have custom B&W settings but since I shoot raw, I always have a full colour file available if desired.
Check out what cameras I use and all our other project galleries.
Mid-Town Toronto Leica Q2 Street Photography
