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Gallery: photographing clothes and souls

February 9, 2025 / 32 Comments

When you photograph people in colour, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls!

Ted Grant

I used this quote last year to introduce a Monochrome Madness post about black and white portraiture. It’s a favourite of mine as I think it encapsulates an important difference between the two media. As I said it that previous post,

Without the distraction of colours, the focus shifts more to the subject’s face and expression. The eyes in particular seem to stand out more, and consequently as a viewer you often feel more connected to the person. And the absence of colour results in an emphasis on shape and form, often making the people seem more significant than their surroundings.

In that previous post I included only images in monochrome (with one exception). But now Patti challenges us to consider the merits of black and white versus colour. I thought it would be interesting to revisit the subject of people but this time compare both colour and black and white versions of some shots.

Personally I believe that in the end the choice of colour or monochrome comes down to the story you want to tell. Is it more important to emphasise the person’s surroundings, or their clothing, or an aspect of their lives? Or are you more interested in the character of an individual as seen in their expression perhaps? Both are valid but usually one ‘story’ seems more important or interesting to me than the other.

Contrast these two examples from Moranbong Park in Pyongyang, North Korea:

Wedding couple
A pause in the dancing

For the young couple the use of colour shows off the woman’s dress, something I feel she would be keen for us to appreciate. And her pretty hair adornments are much more obvious. But in the shot of the older woman, I was more interested in her expression and what it tells us about what has probably been a hard life. She was here in the park to dance and celebrate, which she did with gusto, but when she tired and took a break her face told a different story; one best expressed, I feel, in black and white.

In Bandipur, Nepal

Patti asked us to restrict our selection to three pairs, which I found very challenging! But I settled on this as my final example. The girl’s clothing is colourful and there’s a warmth to the wooden door she sits by. But the monochrome edit, to which I also added a slight vignette, holds your eye on her rather than wandering around the whole image. If I had to choose I would opt for that monochrome version.

Please tell me in the comments which versions of these shots you prefer, and whether or not you agree with the quote by Ted Grant above. All the monochrome versions were edited with Nik Silver Efex Pro and the colour ones with Photoshop Elements and/or Nik Color Efex Pro.

32 Comments

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