Black and white street photography or colour? How to choose

A man in a checked jacket, wearing a purple hat and sunglasses, in the middle of a market. In black and white, he's a man with a hat. In colour, it's all about that purple hat.

For me, that sums up the whole question. Whether I choose black and white street photography or colour depends on what's happening in the photo. It isn't a preference you settle on once and never need to think about again.

Why street photography is so often in black and white

Flick through books of street photography and you'll see a lot of black and white. There's a history behind that. The photographers who established the genre spent years working with black and white film. That association has stuck. You can read more in the history of street photography.

Black and white also removes a lot of distractions. A bright yellow billboard, a red car in the background: in shades of grey, the colour disappears and the shape remains. Light and shadow start telling the story.

The Canadian photographer Ted Grant has a famous quote that often comes up when people discuss this choice.

"When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls!"

Ted Grant

Nicely put. I only half agree, though. The photo at the top of this article is very much about the clothes. That's why it's in colour. I think you can capture something of a person in either. You can fail at it in either, too.

Colour always takes the leading role in my photos

When I photograph in colour, that colour has to contribute something. Otherwise, the photo might as well have been black and white. In my article about colour, I wrote that colour always takes the leading role in my colour photos. Too much of it becomes a distraction.

That sounds contradictory, but one purple hat against a quiet background works. The same hat among ten other bright colours disappears. Your eye no longer knows where to start.

Martin Parr and Alex Webb show this well, for me. They're my heroes when it comes to colour, though they work very differently. Parr photographs ordinary people in ordinary places, using bright, sometimes almost exaggerated colours. Webb builds his photos in layers of colour, light and shadow. I also discuss those layers in composition in street photography. You can read more about both photographers in Well-known street photographers.

What colour tells you

Colour tells you something about a place, the season, sometimes the period when a photo was taken. A red double-decker bus says London before you recognise a building. The low, orange light of an October afternoon says autumn.

You lose that in black and white. That can be an advantage, because it makes a photo feel more timeless. It can also be a shame if that information was what made the photo work. So the question is what disappears when you remove the colour. If it's something essential, it's probably a colour photo.

Complementary colours on the street

Contrast is often what makes a colour photo work. Red next to green, blue next to orange. Complementary colours sit opposite each other on the colour wheel and strengthen each other.

You come across them on the street more often than you might think. An orange coat in front of a blue door. A purple hat among yellow and green market stalls. Once you start looking, you see it everywhere.

It doesn't always have to be about contrast, though. A photo in which almost everything is the same colour can work too. A woman in a red coat in front of a red building, a street that's entirely blue-grey apart from one yellow umbrella. The fewer colours you include, the stronger the ones that remain.

It works just like light and shadow on the street. First, you find a spot with the colour you want, then wait for someone in the right coat to walk into it. That can take a while.

A market is a good place to practise this. There's plenty of colour, and a camera barely attracts any attention. I also recommend it in afraid to take photos on the street.

When black and white works better

There are situations where I think black and white is the better choice.

Is the photo about shape, with lines, blocks or a silhouette? Then colour mainly draws attention away from what matters.

When the light itself is the story, with harsh sunlight and deep shadows, black and white often makes a photo look graphic and stark. That suits a brightly lit building front on a dark street.

When it comes to emotion, Ted Grant is close to the truth. A face, a gesture, two people holding each other: without colour, you're more likely to notice the expression. Black and white doesn't make someone less recognisable, by the way. So it makes no difference to whether you're allowed to photograph people on the street.

And sometimes the colours are simply a mess. A street full of adverts, road signs and a bright green waste container. Then black and white is the quietest solution.

And when colour works better

For me, colour wins when the colour itself is the subject, like that purple hat. Or when two colours in your frame relate to each other. A red coat echoed by a red road sign further along, for example. In black and white, you lose that connection.

The warm light of an autumn afternoon or neon signs on a wet evening often work better in colour too. The atmosphere is in the colour, as well as the light. Remove it and you're left with a dark photo with a few bright patches.

Black and white won't rescue a photo

Here's what doesn't work: converting a failed colour photo to black and white in the hope that it suddenly becomes art. I think almost everyone has tried that at some point. A photo without a moment doesn't get any better. It just turns grey.

Black and white emphasises what's already there. A strong shape becomes stronger. A weak photo stays weak. It just looks a bit more serious.

So you still need to be strict about which photos you keep, colour or no colour. There's a reason it's among the street photography tips I only learnt after years of doing it.

Choose beforehand

I think you improve when you make the choice before heading out onto the street. Not when you're back at your computer. You look differently. When you think in black and white, you notice light and shape. When you think in colour, you go looking for that one red coat.

Many cameras, including the Fujifilm X100V I use, can show you a black and white preview in the viewfinder or on the screen. That lets you see straight away whether a scene works without colour. It makes little difference which camera you use. More on that in which camera and lens to use for street photography.

Do shoot in RAW, though. That preserves all the colour information, even when your screen shows black and white. You can still change your mind later. You can read why RAW is useful anyway in the best settings for street photography.

You can also make that choice for a whole day. It sounds strict, but spending a day working only in black and white trains your eye more than constantly switching. Next time, do the same in colour.

You can practise without a camera too. Look at a scene on the street and try to imagine it without colour. What's left? Strong contrast between light and dark, or a clear shape? Then you've probably found a black and white photo. If all that's left is a grey mush, it was the colour that made it work.

Editing black and white with colour filters

A black and white photo isn't simply a colour photo with the colour removed. When you convert it, you decide how each colour translates into grey.

In Capture One, which I use for editing, you can adjust how light or dark each colour becomes. Darken the blues and a blue sky suddenly looks dramatic. Lighten the reds and oranges and skin looks a little softer. It's the same idea as the coloured filters photographers used to screw onto their lenses when working with black and white film.

Try it with a photo that has lots of colours in it. A few sliders can make the same shot look very different. This is particularly useful when the colours are messy: you can bring your subject forward and let the rest recede.

Be careful with contrast and sharpening, though. Black and white tempts you to make everything harsher. It can quickly look impressive on your screen, then feel overdone a day later. A little grain can look good. A photo that looks like a filter usually doesn't.

Consistency within a series

Individual photos can go in all sorts of directions. Once you put them next to each other, things change. A series that mixes black and white with colour can soon feel disjointed. Your eye jumps from photo to photo instead of following a story.

So make a choice for each series. That applies to a set of photos on your website or in an exhibition, and certainly to a book. In a photo book like my own The Observer, photos need to work alongside each other on a double-page spread. At that point, the choice is no longer a minor detail.

The same applies to a colour series, just more subtly. If one photo is warm and saturated and the next is cool and washed out, that also feels like two different series. Try to keep the colours in a series broadly consistent. Using the same editing approach as a starting point already helps a lot.

Practise it yourself

In my street photography workshops, you use a keyword, such as Rhythm or Reflection, as a filter for how you look. You can use black and white or colour in the same way. It determines what you look for before you take a photo.

If you'd like to spend two days practising that choice in a city that works in both, Paris is a good place. In the Paris masterclass, we walk through Belleville, along the Bassin de la Villette and through the covered passages, among other places.

Fancy trying it yourself? Browse the workshops or join me in Paris.