If you are looking for black and white photographers to follow on Instagram, you’ve come to the right place. Because in this article, we will feature 15 of the most talented black & white Instagram photographers who are active today.
Today, there is no question that Instagram can be an outstanding source of inspiration. In this article, we continue our exploration of talented photographers who are using Instagram as a sharing platform for their incredible work.
Crafting a list is always a hard yet entertaining task as we set out to curate some of the best profiles on Instagram. The basic criteria for photographers who we consider to be worthy of following is simple: they must be consistent and they must fit the main topic we are presenting. This time we’ll focus on black and white photography without any intention of homogenizing their styles, genres or niches.
Black and white photography goes far beyond being just a style or genre in photography and, instead, is a format and a way of doing things because it avoids the distraction that color can impose on an image’s specific message.
Black and White Photographers to Follow on Instagram
Without further ado, here are 15 black and white photographers that you should follow on Instagram.
Firman Boedihardjo / @opa_firman
Defining himself as “just a simple person,” Firman Hananda Boedihardjo is a Minimal Fine Art Landscape Photographer who excels at capturing nature at a slow pace. His long exposures are carefully crafted and he has a unique passion for boats and umbrellas. I don’t blame him at all since both subjects are profound symbols of something deeper and greater than what they actually are.
Firman Hananda Boedihardjo posts regularly on his National Geographic Profile, but since posting to Instagram brings higher exposure, he shares some backstage shots while shooting landscapes, as well as some conceptual color work.
Posting regularly on his National Geographic profile, Boedihardjo also realizes the value of social media and, since Instagram is a friendlier place, he shares some backstage shots while shooting landscapes, as well as some of his other, conceptual color work.
Akihito Nagata / @abu888
Offering the occasional splash of color, Akihito Nagata’s photography is bold and edgy. Filled with high contrasts, movement, silhouettes and odd points of view, some of his pictures are uncanny reminders of the iconic look that the great cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa gave to each of his movies.
Instagram has a casual and even informal nature of presenting things to its audience, which some photographers use to their advantage to post things that move beyond a certain scope, but not necessarily out of their style. This is exactly the case for Nagata on Instagram. He rarely posts in color, but when he does, it barely makes any noise at all.
Jamal Burger / @jayscale
An Urban Photographer at his best, Jamal Burger has a lot of great material on Instagram that makes him an easy favorite among photographers who are looking for black and white photography to nurture their daily feed. He focuses on architecture, sports and has some of the most unforgettably candid street photography in the industry. In my opinion, Instagram’s 1:1 ratio never looked so good.
Jason Peterson / @jasonmpeterson
Without a doubt, Jason Peterson is redefining cityscapes with his uniquely mad high angle point of view. Even his more vernacular work has an amazing sense of drama to it. To be completely honest, I didn’t know anything about his background but something ticked me off when I saw the “verified” checkmark on his Instagram. I knew that I needed to do more research on him.
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He is the Chief Creative Officer of Havas and uses his iPhone like no other photographer around. Offering powerful compositions with out-of-this-world points of view, he is an absolute must to follow on Instagram if you don’t follow him already. You can read more about his photography technique here.
José Miguel / @voodoolx
A natural spotter of well-suited material for any high key study, José Miguel is indeed a natural explorer. The venues he spots are so clean and highly illuminated that even with low color saturation, the message he sends with his images is clear enough to work that way.
He usually posts in black and white, which is the main reason we included him here, but he occasionally takes the liberty of posting some of his color work, which he also does pretty well.
Watching his Instagram posts is like having an intimate look into a personal and inner board of ideas, essays, variations and almost anything that will eventually transform into something even bigger. The honest nature of his technique is a great reason for following Miguel’s magnificent work.
@mr007 / Masaki Kai
A Japan-based photographer, Masaki Kai has an amazing mastery of aesthetics and composition. His entire stream is extremely well curated; therefore, he offers a great lesson for all photographers about posting high-quality content. He approaches nature and cities with a high level of care and has a consistently structured tone development.
Kai / @wk.ai
This guy undoubtedly has a thing for high key images. With a minimalist approach, Kai captures various textures and structures with an appealing look. Not everything has to be dramatic when it comes to black and white, and Kai’s images are a good example of this fact.
Michael Kenna / @michaelkennaphotography
There is not much more than we can say about Michael Kenna that we haven’t already mentioned. He is a passionate and committed landscape photographer with a unique style. Thanks to Instagram, we can get a slow-paced feed of his work in a convenient location. Hands down, Kenna is a must follow and a must-watch photographer.
Nazaret Sánchez / @nazaret
One of the early adopters of Instagram, Nazaret Sánchez is a talented photographer with a style of her own. With consistent work and a singular approach toward solitude, her profile is one of Instagram’s most prized hidden treasures. We hope that she continues to work with passion and joy. In the meantime, if someone publishes a book of her work, please let me know.
Romain Esteban / @romestebanr
Exquisite movement, interesting social approaches, and a fabulous compositional style is all that I can say about Romain Esteban. Focusing on people in his own unique way, Esteban is a truly magnificent French photographer.
Sergio / @radioactividad
A lot of Sergio’s images have an eerie feeling that is enhanced by the vanishing point he uses with lines and subjects. This technique and style of leading lines are usually seen in movies, which isn’t surprising since there is always a talented cinematographer or photography director behind every great movie. Moody at their best, Sergio’s black and white images work as a statement that speaks volumes about our human interaction with urban and rural venues. Anyone could be one of his subjects, which is the outstanding trick behind the messages his images send.
Simon Chaudoir / @simonchaudoir
Looking through Simon Chaudoir’s photographs is like watching a never-ending surreal film. Surrealism is often a concept misused by the masses but, if you want to see modern day surrealism similar to that created by twentieth century masters, you should definitely take a look at Chaudoir’s work. Eerie and strange, absolutely edgy and intriguing, he is totally worth following as an exquisite artist of humor, a true genius and a living master of all things weird.
Walter Rothwell / @walter_rothwell
Beyond Walter Rothwell’s Instagram account, you should also follow his work on his website. Currently based in England, Rothwell is a freelance photographer who has a long work trajectory that extends from newspapers to NGO’s. Now focused on personal work, he is working on a variety of long-term projects and has exhibited his work in various countries around the world. He is also a member of the Street Photography International Collective.
Weerayut Kongthed / @wejude
With a passionate and clear focus on architecture, patterns, and almost impossible perspectives, Weerayut Kongthed is a Thai graphic designer who shares his impressions of architecture through his photography. He captures textures, patterns and perspectives with his photographs and, while some may call him abstract or even minimal, we simply love the aesthetic he captures with his lens. Self-taught like so many photographers, he looks for art in the lights, shadows, and gradients of the architecture that surrounds him.
Xiao Han / @hx1125
A Shanghai-based photographer, Xiao Han is a mind-blowing storyteller with complex and deep concepts. Since Fan Ho, some Asian photographers are an indulgence to my eyes and Han is no different as a unique treasure of media and a must for any passionate photographer who realizes the importance of watching images instead of reading camera reviews.
Black and White Photographers to Follow on Instagram | Conclusion
Instagram is an enormous platform of daily action. As photographers, we believe that Instagram has become a solid place for both getting exposure to our own work and as a source for inspiration. In this second part of our Instagram focused post, we curated several profiles of amazingly talented black and white photographers who are making an interesting statement through Instagram.
The great thing about Instagram is that we can have an intimate approach to some artists through their profile. Not everything they post is fine art, but it works well as a studium (context) for analyzing the style of each and every single one of the photographers presented on this list.
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