Do you only make / view B&W photos?

[jsrockit]

Originally Posted by Lord Nikon

I definitely agree that your work is very interesting, but it looks like you seek out colors.

Well, I generally photograph in color so I guess certain things pop out when I'm photographing because of color... but I can see in B&W as well. I'm just not as interested for my work.

colors aren't working for you B&W totally wins.

Well, I'd say good photographs win regardless of medium.

[Chris101]

I love color, have since childhood when the best thing in the world was a box of 64 crayons, with wild names and exotic hues. I also loved the trouble it got me into, back in the late 50s, when my teacher told my parents I was being deliberately defiant by coloring the sky purple and the grass brown.

None-the-less, I wasn't deterred - I paint, and deliberately use a saturated palate dominated by juxtaposing saturated primaries with deep earth tones, like burnt orange and thallo blue (green tone). Color film always vexed me, and I burnt out girlfriend after girlfriend by asking them to help me color balance my Ciba prints. But digital color is my salvation as long as I don't need to print it!

I got tired of hearing, over and over, the skin tones are too red, the skin is too yellow, she looks a bit magenta... Geez! Didn't any of them ever hear of artistic license? So now when I print, I print in good old black and white silver emulsion. And then attack it with a variety of heavy metals to make my own color scheme. Iron blue, uranium red, vanadium yellow, ferrovanadate green! And as a bonus, most of it is radioactive! Crit that Mrs. Strubel! (2nd grade teacher who didn't like my crayon choices.)

Paulfish, I'm down with ya, but I never claim a disability. I tell folks I'm a deuteranope, which they interpret either as something catching or a religion, and then leave me alone.

[Chris101]

Originally Posted by jsrockit

... Why the self-imposed exile from color photography?

Ok, I had a bit of fun with you "color-sighted' folks in the last post, but I should probably answer the direct question since I DO have an opinion on this. Yes, I prefer looking at black and white photography. Not that I distain color photography, I have seen some very fine color photographs, but they are rare in my world. The majority of color pictures I see are mundane - they look just like the thing they are a picture of. And I wonder, "Why was this made into a picture?" The thing itself looks just like this if I close one eye and look at it from only one angle, and put a border around a rectangular portion of it.

On the other hand, a black and white photograph looks like something completely different, the tonality is usually overly exaggerated, the shapes are emphasized and the very nature of the thing I'm looking at is grainy and ... well different! The photograph has transcended reality. When color photos do that I like them too. But for the most part I find that quality to be present in black and white photographs more often than I do in color photos.

And that is the main reason I look at photographs or visual representation of any kind (paintings, drawings, tv shows , etc.) - to see something different than if I merely look around.

[raytoei@gmail.com]

i shoot mainly in b&w because:

it is going away.

people with digital cameras do not shoot in B&W,
instead they are taught to shoot in color and then adjust
to B&W in PP. Shooting in B&W means concentrating on
composition, light & shadows and texture.

i think william eggleston help changed people's perception that
color was for snaps while b&W was for fine art. But today,
i see do not see alot of fine art with color, instead i see iphone
instagram as attempts. Maybe it's hard to replicate eggleston ?

raytoei

[jsrockit]

Originally Posted by Chris101

The majority of color pictures I see are mundane - they look just like the thing they are a picture of. And I wonder, "Why was this made into a picture?" The thing itself looks just like this if I close one eye and look at it from only one angle, and put a border around a rectangular portion of it.

On the other hand, a black and white photograph looks like something completely different, the tonality is usually overly exaggerated, the shapes are emphasized and the very nature of the thing I'm looking at is grainy and ... well different! The photograph has transcended reality.

So, you get tricked by black and white's abstraction of an image?

In all seriousness, I have to ask though: What is wrong with an image looking like what it really is? I photograph with other photographers a lot and we sometimes make photos of the same subject. They never look the same ever! Part of photography is putting a frame around something in order to direct someone's attention towards something they may have ignored... or intentionally leaving information outside the frame that makes the image inside the frame different than what is actually there.

I think many people think color photography is easy. I hear so many times that color photography is only about the color. NO, color photography is about content just like any other type of photography... it just adds another descriptive element to the mix.

[jsrockit]

Originally Posted by raytoei@gmail.com

people with digital cameras do not shoot in B&W,
instead they are taught to shoot in color and then adjust
to B&W in PP. Shooting in B&W means concentrating on
composition, light & shadows and texture.

This is not quite true for everyone. I shoot RAW and I can definetely tell while I'm shooting if the photo will be B&W or color. Don't underestimate people based on a camera / medium choice. There is a lot of BS on this site about digital photographers. It's all just photography.

i think william eggleston help changed people's perception that
color was for snaps while b&W was for fine art. But today,
i see do not see alot of fine art with color, instead i see iphone
instagram as attempts. Maybe it's hard to replicate eggleston ?

Well, Eggleston among many others. If you are not seeing a lot of color photography today, you are not looking very hard...it's all over the art world. I think we need to make a disctinction between people who are serious and doing it well and people who are not serious. It is hard to replicate an Eggleston, despite what people here think. He's a very polarizing photographer whose images have very subtle elements that make them work. These subtle elements are lost on many. That said, if they don't do it for you, then that's cool.

[helenhill]

Since I am a Visual Junkie
I View it ALL ...Digital, Film, Color, B&W

Personally I mostly shoot 35mm B&W 99.9% of the Time
but that may Change

Recently I Fell Smitten for Martin Hinze's work
here on RFf and on Flickr
Martin using his collapsible cron & Porta 160...Stellar Rendering, Loved the Muted Colour & Painterly Soft Palatte
so I will Give Porta Color A Go This Summer -
Thanks Martin for the Inspiration !

[hlockwood]

How can the decision, color or B&W, be made without regard to subject matter? The images that interest me most are those that are somewhat edgy or gritty. Pretty pictures of landscapes, animals, cute children hold no allure. Reproducing reality in all its colorful glory is not my goal. So, it's B&W exclusively for me.

I'm similarly prejudiced in viewing photographs. I do look at some color images, especially those that have a hard edge. But most of my viewing is B&W, often with the goal of improving my own technique.

Harry

[jsrockit]

Originally Posted by hlockwood

How can the decision, color or B&W, be made without regard to subject matter?

It's very easy... there are great color and great B&W photos everywhere and they run the gamut in subject matter / content.

I guess my point is that if someone is into Photography, they should be able to view things that are different from what they do personally.

[hlockwood]

Originally Posted by jsrockit

It's very easy... there are great color and great B&W photos everywhere and they run the gamut in subject matter / content.

I guess my point is that if someone is into Photography, they should be able to view things that are different from what they do personally.

Well, as generalities go, I suppose you're correct. But I am, indeed, into photogaphy, and for me photography is personal. This means I have a built-in bias toward B&W, notwithstanding that "there are great color photos...everywhere...".

Harry

[benlees]

I prefer colour, for sure, but really wanted to learn the "basics" (lol) so I went with B&W. Being able to do it all at home was the main reason. Four years a go I thought B&W was pretentious! I was wrong about that. Working with colour film, for me, is too tedious: more expensive, getting it developed, yadda yadda. Digital beckons but I really like older cameras. If the new stuff from Fuji was a bit cheaper I might be all digital. Maybe.

[mrrobleyleica]

I remember reading some odd - almost agressive comments in the visitors book at an exhibition of quite large, mostly brilliant colour prints at the Photographers Gallery in London. This was in the early 80's and most were saying they weren't 'proper' serious art because they weren't monochrome, they considered them 'snapshots'. They weren't of miserable war torn scenes either, just the real world in all it's lovely colourful glory. I was very much a colour person then and until quite recently - transparency film was so good. I like to view all photographs, I'm not bothered about whether they're old, new mono or colour. You don't just watch B&W movies do you?

Now I've turned to digital, because I can't afford the cost of colour film dev & print etc. Also, all my fave films went out of production, especially Kodachrome 25/64!
Nowadays I enjoy the convenience of digital, I also enjoy the steep learning curve that I'm faced with when trying make turn a reasonable digital file into a decent monochrome one. I prefer to work with a monochrome image, and pick photos to work on that particularly suit, usually it's when colour doesn't add to the image on various levels. But I don't think it's ever automatically 'better'.

There's a recent thread which largely lambasts types of heavy handed manipulation of images, which I would agree can look ugly or rather pointless. Digital makes it possible to do anything to an image at the touch of a mouse / button / pen etc. It can be too much freedom, then the tail wags the dog. The technology takes over and the simple image becomes a messy 'digital' one, mono or colour. Sorry, I'm off the point. I hope I'm making sense?
Digital is really a fairly new technology - to me anyway (and most of us) and I'm still learning. I try to make my super sharp and clean digital images look good, and the old film images, mostly monochrome, are still my preferred bench mark.

I bought a secondhand Robert Frank book recently, all mono of course, amazing pics of Paris from late 40s. It's not a very helpful thought but you can't help wonder if it would have been a better book if printed in colour. Pointless I know, it's the interesting content that is the key, the lack of colour is irrelevant, few would be actually better - surely? Of course, he didn't have the choice we mostly have.

I can't help but wonder, off thread again, if that cameras of today are perhaps too good, where's the possibility of the brilliant accident? Modern cameras default settings make endless super sharp well exposed, grainless pictures that lack the character I used to cherish.

Will I buy the M9 mono that will be announced tomorrow? Maybe.

[surfer dude]

Originally Posted by mrrobleyleica

I remember reading some odd - almost agressive comments in the visitors book at an exhibition of quite large, mostly brilliant colour prints at the Photographers Gallery in London. This was in the early 80's and most were saying they weren't 'proper' serious art because they weren't monochrome, they considered them 'snapshots'.

That's pretty funny. I remember viewing a Fay Godwin exhibition at the same gallery in 1980 and in that very same visitors' book there was page after page of tedious comments to the effect that her photographs were just pale imitations of Ansel Adams' prints.

It's like the internet now. It's so democratic that everyone gets heard equally, be they moron or expert.

Including, I suppose, me.

[FrankS]

The additional layer of abstraction of black and white photography requires a greater degree of engagement in the viewer; it gets deeper into the brain due to the additional processing involved. One deals more with the idea of the object (in black and white), rather than the surface of the object in colour photography. Just my opinion, ymmv.

[jsrockit]

Originally Posted by FrankS

The additional layer of abstraction of black and white photography requires a greater degree of engagement in the viewer; it gets deeper into the brain due to the additional processing involved. One deals more with the idea of the object (in black and white), rather than the surface of the object in colour photography. Just my opinion, ymmv.

I always thought the abstraction that B&W offers adds a certain "cool" or novelty factor that the average person finds to be appealing just because they aren't used to seeing B&W as much as color (since color is used everywhere and is seen by most with their own eyes).

[Lauffray]

I just find it difficult to make a good color photograph where the subject isn't the color itself or the photograph not completely dominated by color.

[gavinlg]

I can't remember or not if I answered this previously, but I feel b&w is the purists medium within photography, and the most art-centric (if that makes sense). b&w is something that is pretty much unique to photography, where as color is more universal and more easy brushed past as a viewer. Overall I think I see in color more, but when I am in the right mood/frame of mind, I'm more proud of my black and white photographs. I also feel like my black and white stuff is more 'timeless'.

[Lauffray]

I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure I care about timelessness or artsy-ness of the medium. For me, as long as it translates or expresses my personal views on the world around me, it's good enough.

For example, I shoot BW nearly exclusively all year round. On a trip last year to San Francisco, the way I reacted to the place I felt I needed color. The stuff I brought with me was unused, I bought some Ektar there and shot it. One of the rare times I actually liked my color output

[Morca007]

Originally Posted by FrankS

The additional layer of abstraction of black and white photography requires a greater degree of engagement in the viewer; it gets deeper into the brain due to the additional processing involved. One deals more with the idea of the object (in black and white), rather than the surface of the object in colour photography. Just my opinion, ymmv.

This presumes a certain colour treatment and a certain viewer mindset, neither of which are assured at all. I hardly think someone presented with a David LaChapelle print is going to process it as a window to reality, rather the garish colour makes it rather abstracted from reality.

Those claiming that 'B/W speaks to the soul' or that it is somehow 'truer' or any variation thereof are only screaming their preferences from the rooftops. Having an affinity for monochrome and a history of examining B/W images as art objects does not imbue them with any sort of extra-sensory powers of authenticity.
The idea of a 'timeless' quality can only be claimed because images of the past in color are not the norm, so the equivocation of "this image looks more similar to those produced in the past" to "this image is timeless" takes place. Look at early kodachrome or tri-color images, they certainly seem "timeless" to me.

[FrankS]

Originally Posted by Morca007

.

Those claiming that 'B/W speaks to the soul' or that it is somehow 'truer' or any variation thereof are only screaming their preferences from the rooftops.

I wouldn't claim otherwise (that this is only my preference), though I'm hardly screaming it.

[JoeV]

Originally Posted by raytoei@gmail.com

...
people with digital cameras do not shoot in B&W,
instead they are taught to shoot in color and then adjust
to B&W in PP. Shooting in B&W means concentrating on
composition, light & shadows and texture.
raytoei

Well, I'm not sure if this satisfies your definition of shooting in digital B/W, but I use a mirrorless, live view Lumix G1 (the first of the new breed), and I view the scene live, in Dynamic B/W mode through the eye-level EVF, and capture the images in RAW, then process them to match what I previsualized in live digital B/W at the moment of capture. Being able to view the scene live in B/W is a real boon to the photographer, one of the things that makes these new cameras so satisfying to use.

IINM, rangefinder viewfinders do not offer this feature.

-Joe

[film nut]

Originally Posted by paulfish4570

i am red-green colorblind, so i do not know if a color photo is true to colors or not. i simply do not see the same palette as the film or sensor. but, if the LIGHT and content are interesting, you betcha i'll look at color photos.
i'm doing a lot more color just because i have the rff communty x100. i have to trust the camera and the post-processing thingies for the color, but i can still read light, no matter what color it is ...

I'm also partially colorblind and I always wonder if I am seeing the same thing that everyone is seeing in a scene. I use both color and b/w film and it seems that the color photos are ok, they seem to be what I remember the scene looked like. But when I use b/w film, everything seems to just jump right out and there's so much detail to look at. This maybe why I like looking at pen and ink drawings and other art in black and white. I can look at b/w photo's all day long and never loose interest; but color just gets boring after awhile.

Mike

[jsrockit]

Originally Posted by Lauffray

I just find it difficult to make a good color photograph where the subject isn't the color itself or the photograph not completely dominated by color.

But I think this is just your bias against color. It's no harder to look at a color photo than it is to look at a B&W photo... IMO.

[shadowfox]

Originally Posted by jsrockit

For some... but you've seen my work and I don't desaturate (which seems to be in style these days). That said, that doesn't mean my work's not mundane.

Your photos are not mundane.
I see careful composition and a good pair of eyes who can isolate subjects amidst contrasting colors.

I am not sure if I can take such pictures in colors consistently like you do. My eyes and brain are wired more towards B&W it seems

[68degrees]

Originally Posted by helenhill

Recently I Fell Smitten for Martin Hinze's work
here on RFf and on Flickr
Martin using his collapsible cron & Porta 160...Stellar Rendering, Loved the Muted Colour & Painterly Soft Palatte...
Thanks Martin for the Inspiration !

Where can I see Martins work?