Black and white photography
At the beginning, there was only black and white photography. Colors where only in the imagination of a photographer and a viewer. No red, no yellow, no green. On a picture of a street, buildings were only little more gray than the sky. Road was only little more gray than the buildings. And face of someone crossing the street was as gray as the sky.
However, despite the lack of color, the pictures were full of life. Nowadays, it seems that black and white photography is becoming more and more forgotten. Of course, if we were to visit a museum or a exhibition of photography, we would find many modern black and white pictures, but only the artistic ones. Color photography is indeed the most common one. The reason for this is that photography was invented as a way to show reality without using a pencil or paint. It’s purpose was to picture the world such, as it was. Without any false misinterpretation of the artist. And when color became available, black and white photography lost it’s prime purpose.
Fortunately, during it’s years of existence, photography gain a new purpose – art. It didn’t took much time to realize that a photo can carry just as much emotion as an oil painting. Of course, many years had passed before a photographer could call himself an artist without making painters laugh, but it was worth it. Nowadays, the work of many photographers causes our admiration and excitement. In many cases the source of these emotions is black and white photography. Photography – an art of showing the reality in a realistic manner, but also in a way, we would all like to view it – beautiful and clean. Art of showing reality filled with emotions. Many artists uses black and white photography for this purpose. They say that it’s much easier to manipulate and in the end, it’s much more persuasive and aesthetic. Of course, truthfulness of this depends on the viewer. After all, photography, black and white or color, is meant to be shown. Whether it is loved or hated, it’s a completely different story…
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