Video: How to create dynamic black and white landscapes

A few weeks back we shared one of Alister Benn of Expressive Photography's great videos, and his latest vid is also well worth a watch. In it, he shows how to create dramatic and eye-catching black and white landscapes.

There's a lot you can do with editing black and white images that doesn't mean simply applying a preset, and it's something Benn focusses on here, instead using a mix of global and local adjustments and using shapes and lines to create strong boundaries between light and shadow. His focus is on simple edits, to contrast and tone.

As Benn mentions, one of the great things about editing in black and white is you can push contrast without running into issues of unnatural colour shifts, as can happen when you brighten the bright parts and darken the dark parts of a colour image. And, by stripping colour away, you can focus on the essence of your subject. 

You can see more of Alister Benn's great and informative videos on the Expressive photography Youtube page. 

Finally if you're looking for somewhere to enter your Black and White images, check out the Mono Awards website. Entries are open until June 14.