There is something magical in black and white photography. There is something truly inspirational and thought-provoking in the absence of color. Maybe because it makes you imagine the same picture in color, maybe because your eye is accustomed to seeing everything in color and thus the absence of it seems so amazing.
One thing is clear: if you want to get inspired, you need to dig into black and white art, and here’s the list of tools and resources to find most inspirational black and white images on the web:
1. Pic Search
Pic Search is a great image search engine that has black and white filter in its advanced search section. Besides that, you can also enjoy other handy options of the tool:
- Search by image type (portrait, landscape, squire, all);
- Search images by size (wallpaper, tiny, medium, large, huge);
- See relevant search suggestions:
Note: thanks a lot to Edward Khoo who shared the tool in his overview of best image search engines.
2. Google Image Search
It is funny that plenty of people search Google without having the slightest idea about all its search options. Black&White image search is just one of such lesser-known possibilities. The option hides behind “Show options” link:
3. Yahoo Image Search
Yahoo! image search deserves a mention here for two reasons: (1) it does support black-and-white search and (2) its main source of images is Flickr, so its like search Flickr but on steroids. The “black-and-white” filter can be found in advanced search along with other cool filters:
- Filter by size (small, medium, large, wallpaper or custom size);
- Restrict by type (search only from Flickr or exclude Flickr images all over);
- Filter by distribution license type:
4. Bing Image Search
Bing has a very lovely image search engine: besides usual filters (like color, size, type, layout, etc), it also offers a really handy interface that allows to see multiple images at a time (details will be displayed on mouseover):
5. Multicolr
Multicolr is a Flickr-based tool that allows to search by color; thus if you want to find only black-and-white photos, all you nee to do is to select colors from white to black:
6. Flickr groups:
- B&W: currently contains over 1, 400K images and more than 80K members. The group has very active discussion boards as well where you will be able to find cool collections like this High Contrast B&W thread for example.
- Black and White: currently includes 2, 120K of images. The group also has a very active forum that has plenty of cool discussions like this one: what’s your best black and white sunset scene
- Black and White Photo Award: currently contains over 76K high-quality black and white photos.
- Black & White with a Touch of Color: one of the best Flickr groups I ever came across: it contains B&W photos with only one color;
- Black and White Artwork: a group containing B&W non-photography illustrations.
- Life in Classic Black and White: the group that helps to see “the life around you from busy city street to a quiet calm landscape, nature, people, etc” in black and white.
- Macro In Black & White: the collection of black and white macro-photography
7. More sources:
- Photobucket Black & White (sorted by popularity)
- Black and White Club at Deviant Art: an awesome group of creative photography and imagery.
Any more? Share your sources of black and white inspiration!
The guest post was provided by Ann Smarty, a search blogger and social media enthusiast. If you love guest posting (like Ann does), join MyBlogGuest, the community of guest bloggers.
nice post. thanks.