Landscape,  Monochrome Madness,  Philippines,  Photographic techniques,  Travel galleries

Gallery: seeing the Philippines in black and white

Ansel Adams
René Burri

I personally always shoot in colour and usually only decide later, in post editing, if monochrome would work well for a shot. Even if I ‘see’ an image as black and white I will take it in colour, as I prefer the effect I can get with later editing options to that created in camera.

While the islands of the Philippines are full of colour, from the greens of rice terraces to the turquoise blues of the sea that surrounds them, I still found a number of subjects that worked as well, or better, in monochrome.

So here, for this week’s Monochrome Madness, is a selection of these, all edited with Nik Silver Efex Pro. I already shared a few in last week’s post about cropping, so I won’t repeat those here. But I’m sure many of these images will show up in future posts in their colour versions (and some already have).

Rice terraces near Banaue

[my feature photo was also taken in this region]














38 Comments

  • Amy

    Wonderful mixed photos of Philippine, Sarah! A great idea to convert these into BnW. The Rice terraces is breathtaking.

  • grandmisadventures

    Beautiful pictures. The one of the rice fields in black and white gives the feel of what a difficult job that must be to work in them. Color pictures of the rice fields to me seems more scenic.

    • Sarah Wilkie

      Thank you Meg 😊 That’s an interesting distinction. We see the beauty of this landscape, especially when we see all the lovely shades of green, but the locals probably see mainly hard work, amd the monochrome emphasises that by removing those greens.

  • Anabel @ The Glasgow Gallivanter

    I’m definitely in the camp that thinks the people shots work best here. I particularly like the first, solitary man in Vigan. He looks so thoughtful. I also like the memorial – I don’t know what colour it was originally but i can’t imagine it would work so well.

  • Monkey's Tale

    If you gave me a choice, I’d probably almost always pick colour over black and white. But, the borders of the rice fields stand out so much more in your black and white, which gives it a different, maybe even more interesting look. Maggie

    • Sarah Wilkie

      Thank you Maggie. I know you prefer colour over monochrome so I’m pleased you found a photo here that appealed to you. I agree, black and white emphasises the patterns of the rice terraces.

  • Sue

    Great set of images, Sarah! For me , the street photographs in Vigan were the best, but I did like the El Nido image

  • Leanne Cole

    You have made some great points Sarah, why black and white. I think for every person who is drawn to it you might get a different answer. I am finding myself being more and more drawn to it. I never shoot in B&W, mainly because I shoot in RAW and it never does that.

    Now your images, they are stunning. I love the first couple, the patterns and shapes are interesting, the one with the memorial is really stunning.

  • bushboy

    I like the seaweed, shell and the palm reflection Sarah. I have been taking photos in B&W as well as colour of the same scene and looking the difference on download. Sometimes I might discard the B&W if it didn’t come out as I hoped.
    I must remember to add a border to my B&W, it is really effective.

    • Sarah Wilkie

      Thank you Suzanne. That memorial runs in a full circle, with those panels of names which are all the men lost in the fighting whose bodies have never been recovered – although some have been found since the memorial was built, in which case there’s a marker by the name.

  • margaret21

    These are great in b/w. For some reason it’s the seaweed that attracts my interest the most. Although nostalgia must play a part in our appreciation of monochrome images, I also think it offers a different, and often welcome perspective – in portraits for instance, when we’re not distracted by other things, such as clothing or bright street furniture but simply focus on the subject – the person.

    • Sarah Wilkie

      Thank you Margaret 😊 I agree with you about the way monochrome removes distractions. There’s a famous quote by Ted Grant, which I’ve used in previous posts: ‘When you photograph people in colour, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls’

  • Marilyn Armstrong

    I like them all, but the view from El Nido after sunset is spectacular.

    A few types of pictures make black & white special for me. One is any photo that is mostly angles and textures. Cloudy skies can really POP in black. Finally, any picture in which there are many skin colors and it’s nearly impossible to get the right color for each person. Stuff that is inherently colorful — flowers, birds, fall foliage and so on — for me anyway doesn’t seem quite right in black & white. I really like professional head shots in black & white. You can get quite dramatic without blinding your viewer. And finally, a lot of high contrast pictures look better in black and white. I know the few times I worked in a studio, we always worked in black & white and we got some really interesting pictures.

    • Sarah Wilkie

      Thank you Marilyn 🙂 I’m glad you like that El Nido shot as I had to work on it a bit. I stitched together two shots to make the panorama and had to remove a man who strayed into the shot but in an area so dark I didn’t notice him at the time of taking it!

Do share your thoughts, I'd love to hear from you! And please include your name in case WP marks you 'anonymous' - thank you