The Best Black and White Landscape Photography Secrets

Using these black and white landscape photography techniques, your landscape scenes will soon become some of your most dramatic black and white photographs. But wait! Before you say black and white is boring, I’ll show you why you may think this is the case…

These black and white strategies will help you overcome some of the difficulties of photographing landscapes – such as capturing the correct tonality, light and shadow; and composition and contrast, which if not accounted for in your planning stage will yield boring flat, lifeless and boring black and white photos.

Using these proven black and white landscape photography techniques, you’ll be taking striking landscape photographs the next time you go shooting!

1) DON’T Forget About Color in your Black & White Landscapes

One of the most critical black and white landscape photography techniques, is to keep you eye out for color. I know what you’re thinking…if my photo is going to be black and white, why do I need to think about color?

It’s a great question. Here’s the deal:

Just because a scene looks great in color, doesn’t mean it will look good in black and white.

How come? Well, when colors are reduced to shades or grey, they often will have the same tones, contrasts and intensity.

See the diagram below? The black and white image is the exact same image as the color one, but “converted” to black and white. See how some of the shades of grey seem to be the same, even though when you see them in color, they are dramatically different?

A yellow field of corn and the contrasting green of the surrounding fields will look dynamic against a stark blue sky, when we see it in color.

In black and white landscape photography, the colors will all “melt” into similar shades of grey, and your drama will be lost; like the black and white cube that is second from the right.

This is what I mean when I say don’t forget about color! Learn how color translates to black and white, and be aware of the tones and shades in your composition, so your final photograph will reflect the drama of the original scene.

So thinking about color, and choosing the right subjects for your black and white landscape photography will help you take better photographs guaranteed!

PRO TIP: I have a quick camera trick for helping you pre-visualize your black and white landscape photos. Take a peek over here. Camera Tricks for Black and White Photography.

Follow these links for MORE black and white landscape photography techniques!

1) Shadows and Light, Secrets of Tonality
2) Composition for Black and White Landscapes (coming soon)
3) Adding Depth to Landscapes – how to use a wide angle lens (coming soon)
4) Special Techniques for Digital Black and White Landscape Photography (coming soon)
5) How you can use the Ansel Adams zone system for digital landscape photos (coming soon)