Allow me to introduce the creative and hauntingly serene black and white photography of Benoit Courti, a Parisian photographer. His work subjects and highlights rather dark contexts using the human body as a form of connection between us (the Viewer) and himself (the Photographer). Focusing mostly within self portraiture Benoit aims to depict the intimate nature of the human body and it’s fragility using props as the narrative to bring attention to just this.
Although he states that he is “Perfectly capable of working in Colour photography” he explains that the demanding aesthetics of Black and White cannot be compared, especially when it comes to sharp detail. Personally I adore simple black and white photography that is clear in it’s comunication, I feel that when used in our modern era there is a strong sense of nostalgia reminding us of the camera’s (now considered ‘Hipster’) 35mm Camera.
What are your thoughts on black and white photography used within the present era?
Mike Powell
September 1, 2014
I think that black and white photography can be really effective with the right subject matter, and people are one of the ones that work well, especially when there is a lot of contrast, like in these beautiful images. I think, though, that it requires a photographer to see differently when composing images–most of the time you can’t simply convert a color photo.
Cogtography
September 19, 2014
Hello Mike, I completely agree with you, people do tend to be the best subjects for black and white photography, I find this mainly because of the detail you can extract from it. Have you seen the re-coloured historical photographs series? They are becoming more and more popular with figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin coming to colour. Here’s a link to the works of Sanna Dullaway to reference:
https://cogtography.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/black-white-to-colour-sanna-dullaway/