Does “Mono-Chromatic” / B&W work in Wildlife also??? 🧐

[Larry S.]

Some incredible B&W landscape images have been presented in this forum. Can wildlife photography also be presented with visual impact that rivals color images? That all depends on the species and environment. That’s one point of view. Color and it’s presentation are usually key components to successful wildlife images. So, what about black & white? Does it work? Can it work? Aside from snowy owls, polar bears and swans…. do we see wildlife that speaks to viewers… when captured in B&W? What do you think… Please share your thoughts and images here. I’ll start it off with two; an egret flaring wings and a group of sanderlings on the Outer Banks in North Carolina…..hmmmm

You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.

You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.

 

[BillW]

I think wildlife images can be beautiful/powerful in black & white. Of course, that depends on the subject, light, and context.

Here is a link to a SmugMug album with a few photos I took of a female polar bear near Seal River on Hudson Bay in November, 2022.

Polar Bears in BW - wwelke

This gallery hosted by SmugMug; your photos look better here.

wwelke.smugmug.com

 

[ajrmd]

It depends on so many factors. While B&W is primarily an expression of tonality, it is dependent on shape, subject, emotion, and other factors as well. I've seen many WL images expressed successfully in B&W when they contained the necessary elements and color was not one of them.

 

[NorthernFocus]

The simple answer is yes, it works. The more complex answer is as stated in the OP, it depends... I never shoot intending the output to be B/W. But sometimes in post it makes sense to convert. Below is an example of using B/W to recover an image. The bears were pretty dirty from digging down through the shallow snow and lying in the dirt. By converting to B/W I was able to recover something from the image.

You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.

 

[Teddy Bozeman]

I also like doing sepia tone! Both Sepia and BW bring out the texture of an image, simplifying the image, kind of making it the focal point in my opinion!

You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.

 

[Calson]

Usually the B&W conversion is used to make a mediocre image "better". Unless there is a graphic element it usually is better to present in color. David Yarrow's images of elephants shows good use of strong graphic elements and worth a look.

 

[MrFotoFool]

B&W Wildlife Thread

Post your black & white wildlife photos in this thread. (I did a search and found a similar thread Steve started, but his is specifically for high key images: https://bcgforums.com/index.php?threads/show-your-high-key-b-w-wildlife-photos.15475/ . This thread is for ANY black & white wildlife...

bcgforums.com