21 Inspiring Black and White Street Photos

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Have you ever wondered why street photography looks so nice when presented to us in a black and white format? Well, we have noticed that too, and there is an explanation for that!

Street photography happens in a serendipitous way, and such random happenings mean that certain elements of the scene can be a little bit too distracting. Jarring or mismatched colors against shadows or other elements within a scene will just distract from the overall story.

By subtracting these colors and converting your street photography to black and white, the message from that photograph will become clear.

Today we want to share with you 21 examples of some really inspiring street photographers from all over the globe, in black and white format.

Photo by Frederik Trovatten on Unsplash
Photo by Matheus Ferrero on Unsplash
Photo by Diego Jimenez on Unsplash
Photo by Michael Gaida on Pixabay
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pixabay
Photo by Joenomias on Pixabay
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pixabay
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pixabay
Photo by Totrtugadatacrop on Pixabay
Photo by Brunoming on Pixabay

Let's make a little break because there is something worth mentioning. Black and white photography used to be a matter of choice prior to taking the picture.

Today, thanks to the extremely generous wonders of digital photography, this can happen after. We can choose whether an image works better in black and white later on in post-production in the comfort of our homes.

Back in the days of film, photographers were used to carry several cameras around, because each of them was carrying a different kind of film. Different film for color and black and white, different films for different ISO values.

Nowadays, everything happens later on!

Photo by 2102033 on Pixabay
Photo by Michael Gaida on Pixabay
Photo by Grwalker280463 on Pixabay
Photo by Leonor Faria on Pexels
Photo by Smokefish on Pixabay
Photo by Paul Cameron on Pexels
Photo by Andreas Winter on Life of Pix
Photo by Jan Kroon on Pexels
Photo by S. on Unsplash
Photo by Jeffrey Blum on Unsplash
Photo by Christopher Rusev on Unsplash

We are not saying that all street photographs should be transformed into black and white because there are some lucky encounters that happen to look extremely well in color.

But if you are looking to emulate these wonderful and inspiring black and white street photography images, make sure you take a look at Kent DuFault's Better Black And White Guide.

This is a complete step by step guide to creating stunning black and white conversions – including teaching you everything you need to know about controlling tone and contrast to get the image you want.

If you missed out on your copy last time, it is available again, and on sale right now.

Click here to take a look…

About Author

Federico has a decade of experience in documentary photography, and is a University Professor in photography and research methodology. He's a scientist studying the social uses of photography in contemporary culture who writes about photography and develops documentary projects. Other activities Federico is involved in photography are curation, critique, education, mentoring, outreach and reviews. Get to know him better here.

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