Through Shades of Grey: Mastering Storytelling in Black and White Photography

In a world obsessed with color, there’s something striking about the simplicity of black and white photography. It strips away the distractions, allowing raw emotions and stories to surface with clarity. The absence of color forces a deeper focus on visual impact, drawing attention to texture, light, and composition. For me, black and white photography is less about the literal and more about the feeling it evokes—something that’s heavily inspired by the works of Alan Schaller and Elliott Erwitt.

Alan Schaller’s bold use of high contrast, geometric compositions like the rule of thirds, and stark light sources resonates with my own pursuit of visual storytelling. His ability to capture human emotion in its most candid form is something I continually strive to emulate in my own black and white photographs. Similarly, Elliott Erwitt’s eye for intimate and humorous moments has influenced how I approach black and white images—his iconic images remind me that even the most mundane moments can tell powerful stories when viewed in black and white.

By focusing on the relationship between light and shadow, and stripping my images of color, I find a narrative depth that simply can’t be matched in the vibrant world of color photography. The results? Images that don't just show—they tell.

Source: Alan Schaller - Metropolis

Contrast and Composition: The Story Starts Here

In black and white photography, the story often begins with contrast and composition. Without the luxury of color to guide the viewer, the arrangement of light and shadow becomes paramount. This is especially true in black and  white photography, where the absence of color demands that every element in the frame carries weight.

Take street photography, for example. In capturing candid moments, the interplay between light, shadow, and subject must be deliberate. I often draw inspiration from Alan Schaller’s street work, where stark contrasts and geometric compositions enhance the visual impact of everyday scenes. By using sharp lines, deep shadows, and the minimalism inherent in black and white, I aim to convey the hustle, solitude, or fleeting moments of humanity found on the streets. Each shot becomes a narrative, constructed with the bare essentials.

On the other hand, when I venture into nature photography, my approach is different but equally influenced by these same principles. Inspired by Ansel Adams, I use contrast and texture to showcase nature's grandeur. Adams mastered the art of balancing the delicate shades of grey with dramatic blacks and whites to create beautiful images, and I channel this in my own work by focusing on the textures and natural patterns of landscapes. Whether it’s the crisp, rugged lines of a mountain or the soft gradients of mist over a forest, the story is told through how the light interacts with the subject, rather than relying on the vibrancy of color.

By embracing these principles of composition and contrast, black and white photography transforms from simple imagery to a tool for storytelling, creating a powerful visual impact in both street and nature photography.

Source: Alexey Titarenko - City of Shadows

Emotion in Monochrome: More Than Just Black and White

Black and white photography challenges us to evoke deep emotion without relying on the crutch of color. In this medium, emotion comes alive through the play of light, shadow, and subject. By mastering these elements, even the simplest of black and white photographs can carry profound emotional weight.

Take the black and white films of Ingmar Bergman and Robert Eggers, for example. Their use of close-up shots in stark black and white pulls the viewer into a heightened emotional space, focusing on the subtle nuances of human expression. The interplay of shadows and the delicate gradients of light create a visceral tension. Their work shows how intimate framing and contrast can stir the viewer’s emotions without any need for color.

This cinematic technique parallels the black-and-white photography of Steve McCurry and Dorothea Lange. While McCurry is best known for his vibrant color work, his black-and-white images capture raw human emotion in ways that color might obscure. Lange’s portraits, particularly during the Great Depression, conveyed suffering and resilience using only the stark contrast between dark shadows and soft highlights. These are prime examples of how white photos can be deeply evocative, telling stories through simplicity.

Then there’s the experimental work of Alexey Titarenko, whose long exposure shots evoke a sense of movement and emotional unease. By blending time and space into a singular, ghostly image, Titarenko shows us that black and white photography can transcend the static, becoming something deeply emotional and otherworldly.

In photojournalism, the power of black and white lies in its ability to strip away the distractions of color and bring focus to the raw emotion in the scene. Gordon Parks, Elliott Erwitt, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Shelby Lee Adams all used black-and-white photography to capture pivotal moments in history. Parks’ images of American segregation, Erwitt’s playful yet poignant street photography, Capa’s harrowing war photographs, and Cartier-Bresson’s candid documentation of life around the world are all masterful examples of how light and shadow can be used to tell deeply human stories.

A particularly interesting aspect of Erwitt’s career was his time as JFK’s press photographer, where his black-and-white images went beyond the political stage to capture the charisma, pressure, and vulnerability of the president and his wife. By focusing on subtle expressions and moments of quiet, Erwitt’s images humanized the office of the presidency in a way that color photography might have distracted from. This is especially true of the devastating images he captured during the president's funeral after his assassination in November of 1963.

Shelby Lee Adams, on the other hand, brings a different emotional depth to black-and-white photography. His portraits of Appalachian families are stark, raw, and haunting. The simple, stripped-down imagery allows the subjects’ life stories, often marked by hardship, to be the focal point. Adams' work, like Parks’, uses the absence of color to draw the viewer into the complexity of human emotion, making the subjects and their experiences impossible to ignore.

By keeping the imagery simple, these photographers ensure that the emotion in the frame is the focal point, allowing the viewer to feel the intensity of the moment. The use of light and shadow across these diverse styles and subjects highlights the universal power of black-and-white photography in photojournalism—to tell stories in a way that’s raw, direct, and profoundly emotional.

Symbolism and Subtext: Telling a Story Between the Lines

Incorporating symbolism in black and white photography is like crafting a visual poem—each element has the potential to carry deeper meaning. Without the distraction of color, every shape, shadow, and subject is heightened, inviting the viewer to explore layers of subtext. Black and white allows for subtle storytelling through symbols, with objects, light, and composition becoming metaphors for broader concepts. For example, the use of stark geometric shapes like triangles or squares can represent stability or order, while elements like a lone tree might suggest solitude and resilience.

One particularly personal example from my own work is the untitled portrait I took during my Bell’s Palsy diagnosis. The asymmetry of my face blacked out, subtly conveying vulnerability and the fragility of the human condition. In this black-and-white image, the absence of color emphasizes the emotional tension, allowing the viewer to focus on the raw textures and imperfections that tell the story of living with this sudden condition.

The negative space surrounding the face amplifies the sense of isolation, a recurring theme in much of my work. The imbalance in the portrait symbolizes the disconnection between how I normally perceive myself and how my body temporarily altered itself. It’s an intimate and introspective image that uses simplicity to communicate both personal struggle and resilience.

When creating symbolic imagery in black and white, the key is often subtlety—balancing visual metaphors with enough straightforward clarity so the viewer can engage with the story without feeling lost. Negative space, as seen in this piece, plays a significant role in creating an atmosphere of isolation or introspection. This approach allows me to craft imagery that invites deeper engagement without overwhelming the viewer with too much visual complexity.

These influences shape how I approach my own symbolic and narrative-driven photography. By focusing on the interplay of symbols and subtext, I aim to tell stories between the lines—encouraging viewers to look beyond the literal and engage with the emotional depth beneath the surface.

Source: Darkthrone - A Blaze In The Northern Sky

Editing for Impact: Bringing the Story to Life in Post-Production

The art of editing black and white photos is where raw captures transform into fully realized visual narratives. With the absence of color, every adjustment to contrast, sharpness, and tonal range must serve the story you're telling. Black-and-white post-processing becomes a powerful tool, not just for refining technical details, but for heightening the emotional impact of the image. This careful interplay of light and shadow allows the photograph to evoke profound emotions, often tied to the subject matter and the everyday life captured in each frame.

For me, the influence of black metal on my visual style has been crucial, especially the stark and evocative album covers of bands like Darkthrone and Throane. Early Darkthrone albums such as Blaze in the Northern Sky and Transylvanian Hunger taught me how to use deep blacks and high contrast to create an intense sense of drama and raw emotion. More recent works, such as Throane’s Plus Une Main A Mordre and Derrière-Nous, La Lumière, take this further with their moody, atmospheric monochrome imagery, where shadows almost swallow the figures, giving a sense of haunting isolation. These albums exemplify how the absence of color forces attention to the texture and darkness within the scene, mirroring my approach to creating emotional impact in my photography.

In post-production, I apply similar principles to my photography to control contrast, emphasize dark tones, and craft a visual narrative that draws the viewer into the story. I rely on essential techniques like channel mixing to manipulate tonal values and achieve the desired balance between highlights and deep blacks. The RAW format is invaluable for maintaining the flexibility needed to fine-tune exposure and contrast, ensuring that the final image reflects the full range of tones in the scene.

One of my go-to editing workflows involves starting with the Lightroom to separate colors into their grey equivalents, which allows me to create depth in otherwise flat tonal ranges. I then focus on adjusting contrast to amplify the visual elements—particularly the negative space—which can be used to highlight isolation or introspection in a subject. These subtle changes transform an ordinary scene into something timeless, much like the classic appeal of black metal album covers that use stark contrasts to evoke raw, visceral emotion.

I also ensure that sharpness is controlled to bring out the textural qualities of my subjects—whether that’s the roughness of a face or the soft fall of light on an object. Post-production is where the photograph’s emotional impact is truly refined, and attention to details like light distribution can make a significant difference in how a viewer interprets the scene.

Everyday life becomes extraordinary when rendered in monochrome, where the absence of color simplifies the image but also forces the viewer to confront its emotional depth. Whether the subject is a fleeting moment on the street or a carefully composed portrait, black and white editing amplifies the narrative strength by stripping away the unnecessary and leaving only the essentials.

Through this process, I aim to create captivating images that, much like the album covers that influence my work, tell stories of isolation, struggle, or introspection, all within the rich spectrum of greys. By pushing the limits of post-processing, I can ensure that my images achieve both aesthetic qualities and emotional resonance, leaving the viewer with a lasting impression.

The Final Frame: Crafting Stories in Shades of Grey

Photography, especially in black and white, isn’t just about capturing a moment—it’s about telling a story, one frame at a time. The key elements of light, shadow, and composition work together to create a visual narrative that speaks beyond what’s seen on the surface. Every image holds the potential to evoke emotion, symbolize deeper truths, and invite the viewer into a narrative that’s both personal and universal. For me, the absence of color allows for a greater focus on these elements, turning the ordinary into something with a timeless quality.

As you've seen, my approach blends technical precision with emotional depth, drawing inspiration from diverse sources—from black metal album covers to the raw power of documentary photography. Each photo, whether it captures the stillness of isolation or the tension of human resilience, is crafted to engage the viewer’s imagination and emotions.

Now, I invite you to experience these stories for yourself. Explore my work and bring these narratives into your space. By purchasing one of my pieces, you’re not just buying a photograph—you’re investing in a story, a piece of art that reflects the timeless quality of black and white photography, speaking to the emotional core of human experience. Each image is a chapter waiting to be written into your life.