There’s a feel to a black and white portrait that is uniquely its own. One of the things we love about it as it relates to family photography is that it takes away potential distractions like clothing and backgrounds. Instead, it focuses on the faces and expressions of the subjects. Its popularity seems to be emerging again as it has throughout the past 30 years of our business. We call it our Black and White Relationship Style Photography and it is definitely a favorite at Innovative Images!
There’s no denying black and white portraits are timeless. The first camera photography was invented in the 1820s, before that time, people relied heavily on traditional media for capturing images, for example, paintings, sketches, and drawings. However, when it emerged, it seemed to vividly capture more information or detail about an object than the traditional media.Even with the invention of color photography in 1891 by Lipmann Gabriel, it is still a gorgeous look that is here to stay. The photo to the left is one of my favorite family portraits and it just so happens to be in black and white of Tana and my daughter Alona, and son, Brock. You can imagine how many portraits we have and this one still speaks to me. It is 25 years old and to this day I have it displayed in 20×24 in my office and it reminds me daily of such a cherished time of life.
It’s not the norm to have a family request their entire session be done in black and white but it is exciting when they do. Turning an image to black and white doesn’t happen until we begin to process the images in the computer. The beauty of this is that we have record of the portraits in color if the client decides to buy some of both. Sometimes we decide to convert images to black and white after the session, on our own, and the client is surprised to see them at the order appointment. Frequently, the client falls in love with the black and white images and prefers them! Lately we have had several clients purchase beautiful coffee table albums filled with their storytelling black and white images. They truly are timeless.
