The Art Of Black And White Photography

The times when photography had just come into being it was essentially monochrome. Later, with advance in technology colors came into ‘picture’. Today the whole world of photography is dominated by color.

Some decades ago monochrome photos were completely out and photography was mainly colored. But black-n-white photos came back into the limelight. A lot of photographers consider it as the purest form of photography. 

So why did it come back? What is so special about this black-n white photography that we missed it dearly and brought it back?

In this article, I will present you with my views on the beauty of monochrome photography and why it is loved so much by modern photographers.

Colours are a Distraction

Black and white photography is treated as the "deprived version" of color Photography. Why would anyone limit their imagination to a mere combination of black and white when he has a wide range of colors to choose from? But the fact is that black-n-white photos can time and again look more startling and appealing then colored photos. Colours can add to distractions and viewers don’t focus on the areas where a photographer’s imagination wants them to. Hence removing colours can help build this focus and captivate the imagination of the onlookers. 

When you remove colour from an image you can no longer rely on it to provide significance or a crucial point in an image. Even with it colour photos don’t last long in the memory but black-n-white images do.

Shape, Form and Contrast

What is of utmost importance in black and white images is the shape and form that are depicted. So while clicking, the photographer’s attention shifts from colours and he is more concerned with the angle and shape that will ultimately be seen in the image. Another major aspect of monochrome photos is the contrast that is seen vividly. This contrast cannot be achieved so successfully in a colored image. We can use this contrast as a focal point in an image or photo. Apart from such tones in images certain patterns can be captured beautifully using shades of black and white only. 

Lighting

Lighting is the heart of photography. The word photography derives from the ancient Greek for ‘painting with light’. In black and white photography it affects all of the above elements - shape, contrast, pattern and texture.Side lighting frequently helps produce the most impressive black and white images. It highlights the edges in the image and increases contrast by adding highlights, and the shadows it creates add interest to the scene as well as enhancing textures and patterns.

K.I.S.S.

You may be familiar with the KISS principle which is - Keep It Simple, Silly. Cluttering a black and white photo with too much minutia will defy the very purpose of back and white photography. Keep it simple and limit the focus to a single well defined subject.Black and white photography is an entire subject in itself and covering it in a single post is like trying to capture an ocean in a single pic. Also, these are only an amateur’s views on the art of black and white photography.

Here is a post on getting started with black and white photography that is a pretty good starting point for photography beginners. 

Would love to hear your views on my post. You can also share your own black and white photography tips in the comments.

Wildlife Matters:

What does it mean? And wildlife  matters to whom?? It matters to all those who
understand the ecosystem and the fact that man is no supreme but a part of this very ecosystem.Since a lot of time man is seen giving a sympathetic approach towards saving the other living animals around.It has become more of a moral responsibility or a deed of humanity. The dependence of human beings on the very food pyramid and the ecosystem seems to have lost meaning with man becoming ever more powerful.

But have you heard about the butterfly effect? if you mess with one small thing, it has the potential to have a great effect. like, if all of the insects of a certain variety die off due to insecticides in a certain area, animals that eat those insects would have their diet compromised and would have to move or die off. either way, it leads to more and more animals dying off or moving away. it messes with the ecosystem and natural balance of things.Many habitats are directly influenced by the way animals live. Grasslands, for example,exist partly because grasses and grazing animals have evolved a close partnership, which prevents other plants from taking hold. Tropical forests also owe their existence
to animals, because most of their trees rely on animals to distribute their pollen and seeds. Soil is partly the result of animal activity, because earthworms and other invertebrates help to break down dead remains and recycle the nutrients that they contain. Without its animal life, the soil would soon become compacted and infertile.By preying on each other, animals also help to keep their own numbers in check. This prevents abrupt population peaks and crashes and helps to give living systems a built-in stability. On a global scale, animals also influence some of the nutrient cycles on which almost all life depends. They distribute essential mineral elements in their waste, and they help to replenish the atmosphere's carbon dioxide when they breathe. This carbon dioxide is then used by plants as they grow.

The balance of nature is a theory that says that ecological systems are usually in astable equilibrium (homeostasis), which is to say that a small change in some particular parameter (the size of a particular population, for example) will be corrected by some negative feedback that will bring the parameter back to its original "point of balance"with the rest of the system. It may apply where populations depend on each other, for example in predator/prey systems, or relationships between herbivores and their food source. It is also sometimes applied to the relationship between the Earth's ecosystem, the composition of the atmosphere, and the world's weather.

In the name of development, we remove trees and vegetation, change how we use land, and keep expanding paved areas. All these not only affect the soil ecology, but also the water balance. Increased urbanization also requires more water to feed the city'spopulation and industry, often requiring deeper and deeper wells to be drilled or water to be moved from even more distant locations.Increase of pavement area not lonely lessens the amount of water vapour that transpiresback from the vegetation but also contributes to groundwater pollution if the salt used to melt road ice were allowed to runoff into the natural drainage system.Over the last 1,000 years human impacts on the land have increased, mainly through deforestation and increased use of pastures.
Such problems have intensified over recent years with unprecedented population growth and urbanisation since 1920, resulting in increased human impacts not only on individual pecies, but also on whole ecosystems.
 

An Almost extinct species -the vulture

The news that’s griping the world today is global warming. Its effects are now slowly coming to light. Some things that were just understood by intellectuals now concerns the common man as well. This ecological imbalance is undoubtedly a result of mans self centric activities. When the sea levels are rising at an alarming rate and the agriculture is suffering, it’s now that he feels the heat. A lot of awareness and steps to reduce global warming are now being discussed on a global level. But a lot which is left in the dark is still facing problems. One such thing is the extinction of vultures that play an important role in maintaining the ecosystem and the bio diversity in general.

As we all know vultures are scavenging birds. They feed on dead animals mostly the cattle. But they don’t kill their prey but are born to clean the environment by consuming the dead. These natural cleansers of the ecosystem are facing a grave problem of extinction, a cause of great concern for all of us.

 Extinction of these birds was considered to be the result of their loss of habitat which is partially true. Increasing urbanization has rendered not just vultures but many more species of birds and animals in danger. But a more recent study claims that population of vultures has been drastically abridged, due to poisoning by the anti-inflammatory drug called diclofenac. This drug is present in the pain killers that humans normally use. It is also present in large amounts in pesticides and chemical fertilizers given to plants and crops to increase productivity. Cattle tend to feed on these plants and hence imbibe these pesticides. When humans and cattle die vultures in turn nourish on them. Diclofenac causes renal failure in vultures.

Scientists feel the quantities of pesticides found in carcass may not cause death of cattle but vultures being small framed animals these chemicals lead to disorders in their reproductive organs. Also, Vultures don’t eat a single carcass, they survive on them. So if one Vulture has tasted flesh of 100 different animal corpses in its lifetime, it has absorbed a lot of chemical. These disorders cause thinning of their egg shells which further results in high mortality rates. This is bothersome, because vultures lay just two or three eggs and that too once a year, also a Vulture chick needs at least 3 complete years to develop, which makes them naturally susceptible to immature death. Researchers studying their deteriorating population have found that pesticide residue causes almost a 20 percent thinning in the egg-shells, making them more vulnerable to the elements of nature, premature hatching and also being an easy prey to predatory birds.

 To add to this, a survey has also found out that in India a number of tribes in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra eat vulture meat! But what leads to the concern is the fact that villagers view these as scavenging birds as aggressive predators with a tendency to lunge and lift their livestock. Hence detailed entraps are laid out to destroy these vultures, the widespread method being to mix lethal poison in a body which kills these birds instantly.

Dr. Salim Ali in ‘The Book of Indian Birds’ described vultures as God's own incinerators, which cannot be replaced by even the most sophisticated ones. Serving as nature's doorkeepers, these birds dash about, tolerating the most repellent of food, and ridding our ecosystem of young insects and disease-carrying viruses in the process.Hence it’s our duty to help save these birds from going extinct.

Defining Development

An innovation in the field of technology is what determines development today. A nation is said to be developed if it has succeeded in curbing the village culture and walking on the way towards urbanization, building concrete cities with a huge density of people per square kilometer. History shows that the original settlements that grew into cities were usually built as trading centers or as forts to defend strategic locations. For this reason, most major cities are on rivers or harbors, or at the junction of important overland routes. Mumbai is a good example of this.

Development of science and technology has no doubt improved living conditions. There is a huge decline in death rates, and the life expectancy has increased considerably. But this definition of development comes with its own set of problems. Problems of population and pollution. The developing world is heading towards an uncontrollable growth of metro cities in upcoming years. When it comes to metro cities let us consider Mumbai as we are familiar with its growth and its problems. This is a land of dreams for most Indians. Mumbai is India’s financial capital, and one of the richest cities in the world. It is ranked the seventh best city in the world for number of millionaires. Mumbai hopes to become the world’s new Shanghai, and is predicted to become the world’s second largest urban conglomeration after only Tokyo by 2025. However, there is another side to Mumbai. It has Asia’s largest slum in which 55% of Mumbai’s population lives. A slum is a major part of any metropolitan city in India. It is a part of the development process associated with each growing city. If the belief that urbanization makes life better is true, slums do not fall in this category, though they constitute more than 50% of the urban population.

Slums are places with very poor quality of living conditions. Survival is the only aim and the daily struggle of people who live here. These areas are definitely insanitary. This gives rise to a number of water born diseases every single day. Here disasters like floods during monsoons or fire otherwise are common. Living space is cramped – there are 1 million people packed into one square mile. Privacy is almost absent. It is not unusual to see things like children playing around toxic sludge or their parents rooting among the rubbish for things to reuse or eat. There are astonishing statistics which represent the intensity of these problems. Hence when it comes to poor cities, bigger is by no means always better. Rapid economic growth brings substantial problems of its own -- notably increased pollution. Already, 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China, which is arguably undergoing the most rapid industrial and economic transformation the world has ever seen.

It is time we change our definition of development. Technology alone cannot guarantee better living conditions for all at least in a developing country like India. More than half of the existing population is struggling to survive on a daily basis to make the life of the other half easy and comfortable. This attitude cannot be labeled as growth or advancement. There is a need for development which is all inclusive.

Interlinking Rivers- Can it be a one stop solution to water problems in India?

 

I have heard a lot of talk these days about the fascination for interlinking the major rivers in India. For me it is rather surprising that such a thought might gain so much attention. After a long time the old idea and the old debate of a massive project of interlinking rivers in India has been rejuvenated, thanks to the February 27 directive by the Supreme Court to the ruling coalition to set up a committee and start its implementation. It is shocking and amusing I believe for a lot a people, as this project doesn’t really appear plausible economically and ecologically.

But even with it around 14 river links up north and 16 down south are being considered for this project. This project has come to the forefront because it is being considered as a one-stop solution to prevent floods, droughts, tackle water shortage issue, increase irrigation and thus food grain production. But are these benefits real or are they perceptional?

Although the technical feasibility has been well studied and justified, talking from the environmental point of view, this project gets a thumbs down from most of the environmental working groups including the CSE. There are a few major drawbacks that experts have pointed out. Firstly there is a feeling that this project attempts at redesigning the very geography of India. The rivers are being viewed as pipelines which is startling. Secondly around 80 dams need to be built which will definitely have a major and adverse ecological impact. Each dam will mean displacement of people which is not always feasible. Thirdly there is a fear of simultaneous flooding and drying up of river basins that are anticipated to be linked. There is also a fear of depletion of coastal ecology, especially mangroves, due to the diversion of “surplus” river water.

All these concerns indicate that the economic and environmental costs of interlinking India’s rivers overshadow its probable benefits. It also calls for a broad discussion and research about the possible effects of this project. Because any damage to the environment can be irreversible.