Underwater Scenes Captured in Striking Monochrome

Artistic Black and White Underwater Photography: Emphasizing Form, Texture, and Light

Artistic black and white underwater photography can reveal a mesmerizing world, emphasizing the beauty of shapes, textures, and light interplay. This style requires careful control of lighting, composition, and post-processing to overcome underwater challenges and highlight the desired motif.

Key techniques for capturing striking black and white underwater images include:

Lighting: Utilize strong, directional artificial light such as strobes or focus lights to illuminate your subject clearly and create contrast. This enhances texture and separates subject from background, crucial underwater where natural light quickly dims and colors fade with depth.
Composition: Pay special attention to three-dimensional space, movement, and framing underwater. Use compositional tools like the rule of thirds, leading lines (formed by coral or sand patterns), and negative space to focus attention and create dramatic images. Macro lenses can capture intricate detail, while wide-angle lenses suit larger subjects.
Exposure and Contrast: Slightly overexpose images to retain detail in shadows, especially with light backgrounds (e.g., white sand). Increase contrast selectively to compensate for the natural flatness underwater, emphasizing textures and forms.
Post-Processing: Convert images to black and white using Photoshop's B&W command or alternatively, shooting in Raw and using the Convert to Grayscale command in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom. Enhance contrast and clarity, carefully adjusting exposure and tone curves for a natural yet artistic look. Gradual local contrast enhancement helps bring out details without over-processing.
Use of Depth and Shadows: Exploit underwater shadows and light beams ("god rays") from surface sunlight or use artificial light creatively to build mood and dimension in monochrome images.

Some examples include a 60mm+1.4x teleconverter-equipped camera capturing squid and other pelagic invertebrates, with a shutter speed of 1/160th and ISO 320. Another photograph, taken with a Nikon D300 and a Tokina 10-17mm at 10mm, features a kelp scene from Australia, with a shutter speed of 1/90th, ISO 200, and aperture F11. The high degree of contrast in this image contributes to its appeal.

In underwater black and white photography, it's beneficial to think in black and white before shooting and to find subjects that will best show off the desired motif. Keeping details in the shadow areas and avoiding blown highlights is essential for a successful image. Using a high ISO can create an old, grainy look, particularly with wrecks. Emphasizing shapes, such as recognizable fish or shark shapes, can make for interesting underwater black and white photos.

In conclusion, master controlled artificial lighting, thoughtful composition, exposure adjustments, and deliberate post-processing (black and white conversion with enhanced contrast and grading) to produce striking artistic black and white underwater photos that emphasize shape, texture, and light interplay, overcoming underwater color loss and flatness.

The silhouette of a shark, skillfully guided by strong, directional artificial light, creates a captivating black and white underwater image.
When shooting black and white underwater photography, carefully focusing on the subject and separating it from the background can reveal intricate details, similar to home-and-garden Macro photography.
A kelp forest, beautifully framed with leading lines and negative space, becomes an underwater composition that tells a story in the realm of lifestyle photography.
In post-processing software like Photoshop and Lightroom, increasing contrast selectively enhances textural details, transforming black and white images into works of art.
Utilizing the rule of thirds and focusing on theSubject's shapes (such as the distinctive form of a tank, wreck) can create intriguing black and white underwater photos that evoke different emotional responses.
By slightly overexposing images and using a high ISO, photographers can evoke an old, grainy aesthetic that adds character to their underwater black and white photography.
A 60mm teleconverter-equipped camera, with a wide aperture and high shutter speed, is an effective tool for capturing the elusive beauty of squid and other elusive underwater creatures in striking black and white photographs.