132 Best Black and White Photo Quotes of All Time

A black and white photo is stunning and appealing in every sense. When you create such a photo, you show a very different perspective altogether making them so intriguing. timeless, and ageless. Just to match how classic black and white photo looks, it requires the best black and white photo quotes as well to enhance the look.

Luckily, we got you covered, with our personal favorite and also the best black and white photo quotes of all time for those classy pictures. You can also use these black and white photo quotes as a caption while sharing on social media. So here we have compiled the list of the best black and white photo quotes that you will absolutely love and make your overall picture wholesome.

List of Best Black and White Photo Quotes

1. If everything isn’t black and white, I say, ‘Why the hell not?’ – John Wayne

2. My philosophy, like color television, is all there in black and white.

3. I’ve been forty years discovering that the queen of all colors is black.” – Henri Mattise

4. Human nature is not black and white but black and grey. – Graham Greene

5. Life isn’t black and white. It’s a million gray areas, don’t you find?

6. Black and white are abstract; color is not. Looking at a black and white photograph, you are already looking at a strange world. – Joel Sternfeld

7. I think it’s because it was an emotional story, and emotions come through much stronger in black and white. Color is distracting in a way, it pleases the eye but it doesn’t necessarily reach the heart. – Kim Hunter

8. For me, converting a color photo to black and white is like dipping a film negative in the developer liquid and discovering the final image. – Guy Gagnon

9. Life isn’t black and white. It’s a million gray areas, don’t you find? – Ridley Scott

10. It’s about you. If you win, it’s you; if you lose, it’s you. Black and white. Nowhere to hide.

11. To see in color is a delight for the eye but to see in black and white is a delight for the soul – Andri Cauldwell

12. It is always worth reflecting on why you are doing B&W. After all, making pictures black and white is a deliberate choice and there’s usually a bit more to it than a whim. – John Beardsworth

13. It’s about you. If you win, it’s you; if you lose, it’s you. Black and white. Nowhere to hide. – Greg Rusedski

14. In tragedy, it’s hard to find a good resolution; it’s not black and white: it’s a big fog of gray.

15. Landscapes are a classic way of using black and white and can give you a very elegant look at nature. – Rob Sheppard

16. There’s so much grey to every story; nothing is so black and white. – Lisa Ling

17. Things are not quite so simple always as black and white.

18. Mastering black and white photography is about learning to see in shades of gray. – Ted Dillard

19. In the beginning, it was all black and white. – Maureen O’Hara

20. Black and white find new strength in unlikely subjects, taking away the distractions of color and emphasizing form, texture, and shape.” – David Prakel

Caption for Black and White Pic

21. Being glamorous is about strength and confidence. It’s black and white. Dramatic. You have to be strong. – Catherine Zeta-Jones

22. Color is everything, black and white is more.

23. Black and white have an unsurpassed ability to convey character. – David Prakel

24. Black and white are the colors of photography. To me, they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected. – Robert Frank

25. Black is the hardest color in the world to get right—except for gray.

26. Things are not quite so simple always as black and white. – Doris Lessing

27. Women think of all colors except the absence of color. I have said that black has it all. White too. Their beauty is absolute.

28. Nothing conveys mood and emotion quite like a good black and white image. But simply removing color from an image is unlikely to achieve this. – Robin Whalley

29. Any preoccupation with ideas of what is right or wrong in conduct shows an arrested intellectual development. – Oscar Wilde

30. You can wear black at any time. You can wear it at any age. You may wear it for almost any occasion; a ‘little black frock’ is essential to a woman’s wardrobe.

31. Black and white are the colors of photography. To me, they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected.” – Robert Frank

32. In the first place, when there is a policy of intentional aggression, inspired by a desire to get possession of the territory or the trade of another country, right or wrong, a pretext is always sought. – Elihu Root

33. Landscapes are where photography began, and in the beginning, black and white was all there was.” – Rob Sheppard

34. I still seized the power, but I felt that if I officially made myself the boss, in black and white, it would be too intimidating for the other producers and the other men who worked on the show. In other words, I had the power, but I gave them the title. – Marlo Thomas

35. A good color picture is usually a good black and white too. – John Beardsworth

36. If there’s one thing that everyone can agree on, it’s that, right or wrong, they hate the press. – Mo Rocca

37. The way I was brought up by my parents and guided through my football life by the influences of various managers means that in some ways I am black and white. – Stuart Pearce

38. Black is always elegant. It is the most complete color in the whole world, made of all the colors in the palette.

39. I think every subject deserves to be treated as just what they are, an individual. It’s quite often I will think ‘this is going to look great in black and white’ though. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a black and white photograph and thought ‘that would look great in color’. – Dean Sherwood

40. I do not want to go into its physical reasons: the construction of the human body is different from that of carnivorous animals. But man’s intelligence is such that it can be utilized to defend anything he does, whether right or wrong. – Morarji Desai

Black and White Photo Caption

41. Black encompasses all colors. Black is the most aristocratic color of all.

42. A natural self-limitation in photography is to leave out the color and present the world in black and white. – Harold Davis

43. Whether his policy was right or wrong, he built up the glory of the nation. – Sam Houston

44. No person is completely wicked, just as no person is perfect. We are all grey.

45. Admiring black and white photos is often what first starts people out on their own road to becoming keen photographers. – John Beardsworth

46. Any time you stop looking at evil as a black and white thing, it’s helpful. So the fact that there won’t be any obligatory Islamic terrorist stereotypes in movies anymore, that’d be helpful. – John Cusack

47. Black and white photography erases time from the equation.

48. By the way, the secret of speaking French is confidence. Whether you are right or wrong, you don’t hesitate. – Joseph Epstein

49. Good black and white photography is not about the removal of color!” – Rob Sheppard

50. A theory has only the alternative of being right or wrong. A model has a third possibility: it may be right, but irrelevant. – Manfred Eigen

51. To see in color is a delight for the eye but to see in black and white is a delight for the soul. – Andri Cauldwell

52. The black and white photographer is a musician, transposing notes on the fly, visualizing a final print from the world of color. – Ted Dillard

53. ‘My country, right or wrong’ is a thing no patriot would ever think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying ‘My mother, drunk or sober.’ – Gilbert K Chesterton

54. There’s something strange and powerful about black-and-white imagery. -Stefan Kanfer

55. It’s an obvious opportunity for black and white when a scene contains little color but lots of texture.” – John Beardsworth

56. I’m completely liberated from that way of thinking; which is a jaded way of thinking and I think that when you are in love you can quickly get lost in love and not have different instincts that can be right or wrong.

57. Which is probably the reason why I work exclusively in black and white… to highlight that contrast. -Leonard Nimoy

58. One very important difference between color and monochromatic photography is this: in black and white you suggest; in color you state. Much can be implied by suggestion, but the statement demands certainty… absolute certainty.” – Paul Outerbridge

59. To be one’s self, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity. – Irving Wallace

60. Black and white symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected. -Robert Frank

Black and White Captions for Instagram

61. You know, one of the things I like about this world, or at least I like about the way we’re presenting this world, is these issues are terribly complicated, not nearly as black and white as we’re led to believe. – Aaron Sorkin

62. Black and white creates a strange dreamscape that color never can.

63. Black and white photography has enhanced sobriety and gravitas that can be well suited to formal events such as weddings. – Tim Savage

64. Science attempts to analyze how things and people and animals behave; it has no concern whether this behavior is good or bad, is purposeful or not. But religion is precisely the quest for such answers: whether an act is right or wrong, good or bad, and why. – Warren Weaver

65. Black and white is not sad, it’s poetic.

66. While colour photography gets ever closer to reproducing a ‘real image’, comparable to that witnessed by the eye, mono provides a level of abstraction that can evoke a sense of fantasy, dream or escape.” – Tim Savage

67. It’s because I know that life is really black and white that I miss my life of colors. – Anthony T. Hincks

68. I think it’s because it was an emotional story, and emotions come through much stronger in black and white. -Kim Hunter

69. Even when your life is full of color, you still need to be reminded that things come in black and white. – Anthony T. Hincks

70. As a child, I used to watch old black and white movies and was captivated by the imagery. I think that this influenced my decision to specialize in black and white from an extremely early stage. For me, black and white is a purer image which allows greater drama and more expression, be it a portrait or a landscape.” – Antonia Deutsch

71. I think it’s because it was an emotional story, and emotions come through much stronger in black and white. -Kim Hunter

72. Don’t ever let the light of your soul dim, even if the world seems black and white. – Tilicia Haridat

73. “Take your time with your composition; black and white images need to be strong to work well. With my black and white images, I am always looking for bold textures, the contrast between layers and lines in the composition to draw my viewers through the image.” – Helen Rushton

74. Looking at a black and white photograph, you are already looking at a strange world. -Joel Sternfeld

75. Things are always either black or white. The grey in between is only a confusion. – Ljupka Cvetanova

76. Don’t define the world in black and white because there is so much hiding in the gray.

77. I’ve been forty years discovering that the queen of all colors is black.” – Henri Mattise

78. It’s not easy taking your own advice, accepting what you don’t like hearing, and seeing the grey amongst the black & white. – April Mae Monterrosa

79. She sees in black and white, things in greys, and loves in color. -JmStore

80. The special factor about black and white photography is that it doesn’t just copy the reality, but it represents it with its own language.” – Gian Marco Marano

Short Caption for Black and White Pics

81. Music photographs in black and white are timeless. I can definitely recount more black and white music photographs I love than I can colour ones.”  – Dean Sherwood

82. Our friends are all around and the storm was a no show, Said we looked better in the black and white photo. – Dirty heads

83. The most colorful thing in the world is black and white, it contains all colors and at the same time excludes all. – Vikrmn

84. When you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls. -Ted Grant

85. Working in black and white makes me feel like a painter, not a photographer. Shooting this way allows me to focus my attention on the light and shade, textures, shapes, and expressions. It’s really a matter of personal choice, but in my opinion, black and white can lead to a more abstract reading of reality, which is arguably more demanding and more challenging to produce. Here photographers cannot use flattering colors or colored light to distract the eye. You cannot cheat in black and white.” – Guy Gagnon

86. Know the difference between principles based on right or wrong vs. principles based on personal gain, and consider the basis of your own principles. – Marilyn Vos Savant

87. Looking at a black and white photograph, you are already looking at a strange world. -Joel Sternfeld

88. I do not say a proverb is amiss when aptly and reasonably applied, but to be forever discharging them, right or wrong, hit or miss, renders conversation insipid and vulgar. – Miguel De Cervantes

89. Don’t define the world in black and white because there is so much hiding in the gray.

90. We’re just trying to find some color in this black and white world. -The Maine

91. While the absence of color may contribute to our appreciation, at the same time it is important to assert that black and white is not photography minus color. Not at all. It’s much more subtle than turning down the color saturation on your television.” – John Beardsworth

92. Morality: The theory that every human act must either be right or wrong, and that 99% of them are wrong. – Henry Louis Mencken

93. Do what you believe is right. Don’t let anyone make the decision of right or wrong for you except God.

94. Things in law tend to be black and white. But we all know that some people are a little bit guilty, while other people are guilty as hell. – Marie Louise De La Ramee

95. For black and white landscapes I concentrate on the graphic elements of a scene, and the nature of the environment, whether it is stormy or tranquil.” – Antonia Deutsch

96. “I don’t see the world completely in black and white. Sometimes I do.” – Benicio Del Toro

97. The human dilemma is not whether to do right or wrong, but rather to do right when it matters the most, and wrong when it matters the least.

98. “Black and white photography is true quite a ‘departure from reality’, and the transition from one aspect of visual magic to another was not as complete as many imagine.” – Ansel Adams

99. Sometimes it’s hard to pick right from wrong. The best thing we can do is go with our heart and hope it all goes well.

100. This is what I like about photographs. It’s proof that once, just for a heartbeat, everything was perfect.

Black & White Quotes

101. Our religious belief usurps the place of our sensations, our imaginations of our judgment. We no longer look to actions, trace their consequences, and then deduce the rule; we first make the rule, and then, right or wrong, force the action to square with it. – Francis Wright

102. There are times when you want to say or feel things but you don’t, as we end up thinking if it’s right or wrong. But we forget feelings do not have boundaries unlike the norms of life made by us. Sometimes it’s better to let them flow. – Nidhi Saini

103. To see in color is a delight for the eye but to see in black and white is a delight for the soul” – Andri Cauldwell

104. The ignorance of the world often makes people believe that life should be black and white, that you must choose sides. And so the world of colorful gradients goes unadmired. – A.J. Darkholme

105. I’ve noticed that truth is very rarely found in the extremes, in the black and white. You’ll usually find it right in the middle, in the gray. It’s just much harder to find that way.

106. “With the black and white films, one was concerned with tone.” – Julie Harris

107. The truth never had any shades of grey, there was always a discernible line between black and white. – Kenneth Eade

108. “Maybe black and white is the best medium for landscapes, I don’t know.” – Fay Godwin

109. Color tends to corrupt photography and absolute color corrupts it absolutely. Consider the way color film usually renders blue sky, green foliage, lipstick red, and the kiddies’ playsuit. These are four simple words which must be whispered: color photography is vulgar.” – Walker Evans

110. When we don’t have information, we go to the simplest outlook, to black and white. But then we have to lie to ourselves. Black is never as black as you’re painting it and white is never as white. – Patricia Sun

111. The natural response of the old-timers is to build a strong moral wall against the outside. This is where the world starts to be painted in black and white, saints inside, and sinners outside the wall. – Mary Douglas

112. The way I was brought up by my parents and guided through my football life by the influences of various managers means that in some ways I am black and white. – Stuart Pearce

113. There’s something strange and powerful about black-and-white imagery.” – Stefan Kanfer

114. “Color is descriptive. Black and white is interpretive.” – Eliott Erwitt

115. With black and white photography, what you have to say counts more than the way you say it.” – Gian Marco Marano

116. “Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but black and white films still hold an affectionate place in my heart; they have an incomparable mystique and mood.”― Ginger Rogers

117. “I work in color sometimes, but I guess the images I most connect to, historically speaking, are in black and white. I see more in black and white – I like the abstraction of it.” – Mary Ellen Mark

118. When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls. – Ted Grant

119. Books bring alluring colors to our mundane black and white world. – Caleb Reese

120. We’re all complex creatures, and we shouldn’t have to pick one thing to be passionate about. Life isn’t black and white, so we shouldn’t live that way. – Cassadee Pope

121. The world is in color, you have to work in black and white.” – Andrew Maclean

122. I really see food as subjective. It’s a creative outlet. It’s something that you do for fun. It’s a gray area. It’s not black and white or right and wrong. – Graham Elliot

123. War’s not black and white; it’s gray. If you don’t fight in the gray area, you’re going to lose. – Marcus Luttrell

124. I don’t look at things in black and white. There are big gray areas. There’s a lot of slippage. – Mark Bradford

125. We were living in a tumultuous time when the world was upside down. Freeman produced a show that was black and white, the good guys versus the bad guys. – James MacArthur

126. When I was young, I had a very clear point of view on things in life, on moral questions. There was a black and white viewpoint in my world. As I’ve gotten older, I see the grey areas appear. – Joel Edgerton

127. We’re so quick to go to make things black and white and to put things in their box. But everything is this mixture, and that’s what this world is, is this blend of different things. – Matisyahu

128. When you’re the victim of the behavior, it’s black and white; when you’re the perpetrator, there are a million shades of gray. – Laura Schlessinger

129. Life isn’t black and white, so don’t hate the criminal, hate the crime. – Aly Johnson

130. Sometimes couples have to argue, not to prove who’s right or wrong, but to be reminded that their love is worth fighting for. – Nishan Panwar

131. If you trust in everything the world tells you, you can’t develop your own intuition about what’s right or wrong. Start believing in your own intuitions they are the green light towards your life. – Kemmy Nola

132. America is a country founded on guns. It’s in our DNA. It’s very strange but I feel better having a gun. I really do. I don’t feel safe, I don’t feel the house is completely safe if I don’t have one hidden somewhere. That’s my thinking, right or wrong. – Brad Pitt

We hope that you like and get inspired by these best black and white photo quotes about life of all time. Other than these amazing black and white photo quotes if you want to share with us any other black and white photo quotes, you can leave a comment below.

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