Blog #163 Cityscapes in B&W
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📷 📷 Hobbyist
A majority of civilisation live in urban environments. For generations, we have been migrating from the wilderness to urban environments. Concrete Jungles have replaced the countryside for most of us. For us photographers, urban landscapes are the (all-too) common subject of images that proverbially pour down from the digital cloud that perpetually hangs above us.
From an interesting historical note, the first image ever was a black and white urban landscape. In fact the chemistry and techniques in the early days of photography (drawing with light) in Paris around the 1840s required very long exposures. The image (shown below) is an image made of a street somewhere in Paris. However, there is a man getting his boots shined who happened to stand still enough and long enough to be burned into the image. This is the first image of a person, ever!
We’ve been shooting cities in black and white and colour, eventually, ever since. Certainly this subject is a familiar one. All of those whites, blacks, shadows, tones, angles, patters, and curves can be accentuates with reflection, form, shape, negative space, and more. It seems as through you can de-construct most any urban landscape photograph and find any number of compositional foundations. A given image might emphasis tones over shapes, or lines, over patterns, or patterns over tones, or any combination of these design elements.
I guess that’s why we love them. I certainly do. They never get old for me. Do you like/love cityscape shots? Do you prefer them in black ands white or colour? The possibilities are endless. Have fun and keep shooting wherever you are.
The light is always right.
JHG
*Images: © Limelight Limited
Where: Hong Kong
Subject: Urban Landscapes in Black and White
Gear: Fujifilm X-T3, Fujinon XF 18-55mm Zoom Lens R OIS
National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year 2017 Editor’s Favorite: Galleries: Week 4 Cities & People
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