Monday 11 April 2016

Memory Keeping with Project Life by Stampin'Up Blog Hop - April - Tips for Black and White Photographs



Another month and the MKPLSU blog hop is back! This month we are focusing on Black and White photographs and it made sense to me to work on more of my Wedding album.  This time I am working on the 12"'x12" album pages and I pulled out some of the professional Wedding photos that were done in black and white.

We used Shannon Smith from La Bella Vita Photography to snap our big day... and she did an AWESOME job.  Shannon's work is Central Coast and Hunter based, so if you are looking for a great photographer in our area, I would absolutely recommend her!

I love the romantic old-world feel of these photos. They are soft and dreamy... a bit like the occasion :-)  But I do have some tips for you when working with Black and White photos so here we go....

1. Use CONTRAST.
You want to add plenty of contrast to your pages when using black and white photos - it will keep your pages from looking boring or flat.  So think Dark and Light filler cards... in this case the Black and White (and sometimes grey) cards from the "Love Story" card kit work really well.
I also wanted an interesting contrast piece and so I used Black cardstock to make a chalkboard card... and then I added a silver design acetate piece over that.  I really like the chalkboard look so much I think I'll be using it again in my album.

Here is the chalkboard card before I added the overlay:


And then after the overlay:




2. Use METALLICS
Another way to add interest to your Black and White photo pages is to make use of glimmer or sparkle.  I added several splashes of silver glimmer paper and it immediately lifts the page and stops it looking too flat.



3. Use a POP OF COLOUR
Don't go overboard with colour as you may overwhelm your black and white photos... a little colour goes a long way.  Black and White photos are so soft and its nice to let them tell their story. But if you want to add colour choose one and work it into your page in a way that doesn't overwhelm the photos. In this case I chose to add teal blue as it was one of the wedding colours (those being grey, silver and teal) and so it brought a bit more life to the page.

4. Use DIFFERENT SIZED PHOTOS
I haven't really done this much on this page (apart from using one photo as a 3"x4") but one of my favourite tips for black and whites (and even coloured photos at times) is to use larger photos and chop them up! You need to be a little bit careful about the subject matter (as you don't want to cut up someone's face) but for scenery and other objects you will find that upsizing the photos and cutting to suit will really add interest to your pages. I'll pop up an example of this over the coming week or so.

I hope you've enjoyed this quick look at black and white photo tips!

Here are the other awesome Project Life Designers with their fabulous pages!

Julie Kettlewell

Sandra Korten

Constanze Wirtz

Elizabeth Richards Peterson

Anna Pickering



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