The Black and White Photography Challenge – Smartphone Snobbery and Social Media
The Black and White Photography challenge seems to be everywhere on Facebook these days. The premise of the challenge is that people must take a black and white photograph and post it to Facebook, one per day for seven days. The photograph must not contain any people, and the poster should tag someone to take up challenge each day.
Of course, social media is rife with challenges like this, when you tag people and pass on the baton of challenge. This is one of the few I’ve seen, however, that is photography focused. I’ve seen some pretty mean spirited blog posts, decrying the black and white photography challenge, including one article that was sub headed as follows:
Let’s look at an alternative view. For one thing, I’m all in favour of anything that gets people out and taking pictures. Sure, social media is rife with snapshots of babies and cats, but this is a challenge that set specific parameters, and limitation is often a catalyst for creativity. Black and white photography is a specific genre, that requires the photographer to think about tonality, depth, and composition in a way that colour photography sometimes misses. Asking the casual photographer or social media poster to think in terms of a limited colour palette will encourage thought on all of the above.
It has been said that "we’re all photographers these days". Everyone with a smart phone has a really decent camera in their pocket, which you can do with what you want. You can investigate its possibilities and push that pocket camera to its limits. The iPhone has an annual photography competition for iPhone photographs, which yield fantastic results, and their website has brilliant tutorials on smartphone photography. There are other smart phones with amazing cameras; I favour the Samsung series, and my current Samsung S8 is capable of taking pretty great photographs, and I love the pro mode which allows manipulation of aperture and focus in a way that my first digital cameras, from only about 10 years ago, did not. It’s up to individuals about how much they want to learn to really use that tool that they have to take great photographs, and there is emerging market in smartphone photography classes for those interested*. Furthermore, social media allows really easy access to publishing photographs for feedback and constructive criticism.
This is not to say that the smart phone camera has, or will replace a DSLR. But it is at some level a democratisation of photography. And though people might not necessarily think about the photograph they’re taking, the black and white photo challenge arguably can serve to push creative thought around photography. It’s not just the posting of the photographs, but people looking at other people’s black and white photo challenge posts with a perhaps newly critical eye, and trying new things for themselves.
As someone with a social media presence, I’ve been tagged in the black and white photography challenge a number of times over the past few weeks, and not yet taken up the baton, but yesterday, I gave it a go. (It certainly wasn’t any kind of digital photography snobbery that gave me pause for thought, more a question of time in a ridiculously hectic schedule recently!) As the challenge requires that you take a photograph that day, it did require me to actually look around at my surroundings and try and take something that would be interesting, textural and compositionally good, and it also had the interesting side effect of allowing me to try out in smart phone camera mode, an image that I’d been planning for a while. Another challenge for established photographs, is to use the challenge to take a photograph that fits in with your own developing aesthetic.
The most important thing, was that it got me taking a photograph, and it got me thinking. In this way, the black and white photography challenge can be useful for even experienced or established photographers, to try something new, to push themselves, or even just, dare I say it to have some fun!
Of course, the black and white photography challenge isn’t going to make photographers of everyone overnight. Simply de-saturating smart phone snapshot isn’t going to make it a great work of art, but I have enjoyed looking at the pictures on my social media feed that have come out of the challenge, I’ve enjoyed watching people experiment with photography, form and composition, and have enjoyed the comments and the debates that go on underneath the pictures. And amongst the average, there have also been some superb shots from people who wouldn’t describe themselves as photographers at all. This is to be celebrated. Art, creativity, and photography is to be celebrated. Learning is to be embraced, and any challenge to get people thinking or trying should be welcomed.
*If you're interested in smartphone photography classes and tutorials, I recommend Verity Adriana. I also teach smartphone photography, see here for testimonials.
All photographs on this page taken with a Samsung galaxy S8 as part of my own Black and White Photograph challenge.
