Colorless Wedding Videography

Who says beauty is absent in the absence of hues and colors? In black-and-white creation—especially in wedding videography—this is no longer the case to most people who tie the knot these days.

Despite the boom of color in visual arts such as photography and videography in advertising and in almost all forms of media, many videographers are enthusiasts are shifting back to black and white because there is another facet of beauty in subjects when they are in grayscale.

Finding beauty in grayscale

In the beginning, everything was black-and-white. Before color videography that invaded national telecasts, black-and-white videography has dominated mainstream media. Being the more convenient to use and produces better results compared early on in video processing, b&w was safer to use. But with the resurgence of color videography —with the help of modern technology—more and more people craved for colored videos, making the videographers in events such as weddings shoot almost everything in color.

B&W kept plummeting with the presence of manufacturers who offered better color processing at lower prices. As a result, less and less B&W options were available in the market, making it more expensive and hard to find.

In reality, black-and-white (b&w) videography didn't lose its glory despite the dominance of colors in this field. This is because its foundation leads back to great symbolic values in people's culture like birth, wedding, death and other solemn events where the basic white and black are present. And in between, unlimited shades of gray continue to define the other realities.

Over the years, the certain abstract quality of b&w prints never fades to appeal to the senses of imagination and intellectual standpoint. The absence of hues and other shades of color let people unlock the mystery and appreciate the innate beauty in an ordinary scene. Its “simplicity” also forces the audience to see things in a different light and urges them to concentrate on other aspects of the photo like composition, lighting, and the like.

Breathing new life

These days, wedding events breathe new life to B&W because more and more couples want "drama
in their wedding coverage. Most amateur videographers are being lured to colored works because of its almost limitless possibilities. But as they become seasoned videographers, they go back to black-and-white shoots because of their beauty and mystery.

Being part of the power of videography, a new life has been breathed into B&W today. Back in print advertising, as well in movies and other documentaries, B&W continues reinvent itself because it can now be manipulated digitally. In fact, more and more Internet sites create series designed to introduce the new generation of videographers as well as photographers to the possibilities of B&W outputs. These sites tell how great B&W videography is especially in weddings as it reintroduces the photographers to the concepts of shadow, highlights detail, film, image contrast, exposure, and tonal range.

If you are into wedding videography whether as a business or a hobby, there are some things that you can use in shooting in black & white:

- Make sure that you will check about the chronology of the wedding. By doing this, you can decide what to shoot in b&w that would emphasize the beauty of the subject.

- Start learning how to convert color into gray tones because it can be more convenient and less expensive.

- Do test runs because you can examine your contrast and key skills by balancing major shade components before the actual videography coverage.