When shooting black and white photography using natural light, you should let the situation dictate the look and feel of the photo. So don't set out and try to shoot a high contrast shot unless you find a good opportunity with the right lighting. Try shooting on an overcast day.

If the subject matter and intended message of the photo are more important than the eye candy of vivid or eclectic colors, then black and white is the way to go.

When you take a picture, you press the shutter button to open a camera's aperture and light streams in, triggering a response from a sensor. Exposure is the amount of light that reaches your camera's sensor, creating visual data over a period of time. That time period could be fractions of a second or entire hours.