We’ve spent the past few weeks looking at some of the core controls and adjustments you can make with your camera to affect your images. For the next several weeks, we’ll examine somewhat more artistic ideas, starting this week with creating a black & white photo.

At first, this might seem like a very simple task. After all, most cameras today have an option to shoot in black & white, and if yours doesn’t, there’s no shortage of editing/filter apps that will convert any photo from color to black & white.

But there’s so much more to black & white photography than just clicking a filter & calling it done!

Whether you choose to shoot in black & white or convert with a “post-processing” editing approach, your final image is almost guaranteed to turn out at least 2.76 times better if you think about your subject in black & white from the beginning.

Because black & white images lack color information, concepts like light, shadow, and contrast become very important, and can elevate your images from Before you click the shutter button, consider some of the following questions:

So now that you’re thinking in black and white, your challenge this week, should you choose to accept it, is to get out there and create not just an accidental, but a very intentional black & white image.