Art Photography: Project 34: Black-and-White-and-Grey as Colours

Friday, 4 December 2009

Project 34: Black-and-White-and-Grey as Colours

The aim of this project (from the colour set of projects) was to photograph two scenes, one predominantly white and the other black, with varying exposures. This was to show that it is difficult to accurately photograph these neutral colours using a standard through-the-lens meter, which meters everything to be mid-grey. I also found that it was a project looking at white balance - I shot these photos inside but with the only light on the subjects coming in through the window. As a result there was quite a strong blue cast on the photos (I used cloudy WB setting). I ended up manipulating the RAW files and just used auto WB to adjust two photos to remove the effects of colour cast. When I checked the RGB values for these RAW adjusted files, the values were what they should be - in the white highlight areas the RGB values were around 254, and in the black shadow areas the RGB values were 0-3.

This project demonstrates the importance of choosing the correct white balance (and to shoot RAW as a backup!), as has the need to over or underexpose by about 1 stop to accurately expose for neutral colours white and black.

Photo 1, White, 0EV: