B&W vs Color, my personal fight.

[Vaughn]

Painters can intentionally manipulate and alter color; photographers generally have colors given to them.

IMO, photographers do it by seeing the colors and working with them. Color can be as much as the subject as the objects reflecting them (same as light in B&W images.).

 

[BrianShaw]

IMO, photographers do it by seeing the colors and working with them. Color can be as much as the subject as the objects reflecting them (same as light in B&W images.).

How so? I took a picture of a red building the other day. Red, indeed, was as much the subject as the 1920's gas station building was. The two aspects were inseparable. I saw it to be red; how would I work with that color that other than to use film, Like Ektar, that emphasizes the red, or a film like Portra 160 that "pastelizes" the red. Slight variations on the color red. Is that what you meant?

 

[Vaughn]

No -- more compositionally. For example, a singular bright red building would almost have to be treated as one would treat a bright area of a B&W scene. Its location in the frame will have some control the movement of the viewers' eyes within that frame.
To do color work effectively is to throw another layer of complexity over working in B&W, IMO.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I love Peru without a compelling reason.
I was told by a Peruvian historian that they had found a pharaonic cartouche in Peru.
And when he inquired about this matter in Egypt from the historians, they did not find an explanation for this matter.
But one of the scholars of Islamic history told me that this may go back to the era of (Nabi Yusuf) when he was working in Egypt as Minister of Agriculture and Foreign Trade.
And when delegations from foreign countries came to buy wheat from Egypt during the drought years. (Nabi Yusuf) was giving them a (Pharaoh's cartridge), which is like a bill on which the quantities of wheat and the amount of money he received in exchange for this wheat were written.
This means that there has been commercial exchange between Egypt and Peru for nearly 3600 years.
This is strange and surprising.

How did the Peruvian s get to Egypt 3600 years ago? And how come there are no records anywhere that this occurred? Isn't it more likely that the cartouche wind up in Peru recently either by accident or deliberately to try to make it seem there was actual trade 3600 years ago?

 

[BrianShaw]

No -- more compositionally. For example, a singular bright red building would almost have to be treated as one would treat a bright area of a B&W scene. Its location in the frame will have some control the movement of the viewers' eyes within that frame.
To do color work effectively is to throw another layer of complexity over working in B&W, IMO.

Understood. I guess we are a bit different. I find composition of the naturally-colored world a lot easier than “another layer of complexity” by representing color as tones of grey.

 

[MattKing]

This means that there has been commercial exchange between Egypt and Peru for nearly 3600 years.
This is strange and surprising.

How did the Peruvian s get to Egypt 3600 years ago? And how come there are no records anywhere that this occurred? Isn't it more likely that the cartouche wind up in Peru recently either by accident or deliberately to try to make it seem there was actual trade 3600 years ago?

Folks - a little thread drift is expected, but this is enough to raise a moderator's hackles!
Back to the subject please.

 

[markjwyatt]

God created life in color. Color is the real world

Black and white world of dreams.

I am a dreamer.

 

[DREW WILEY]

God might have made color, but absolutely no color film or printing medium ever invented sees color quite the same way our eyes do, so a photographer needs to learn to see hues and contrast levels the way their chosen film and printing paper does. Unlike many, I specialized in large format color photography and printmaking first, and only after picked up black and white, and have ever since done both in parallel - strictly real film and real darkroom, zero digital. The problem with color, as far as my own outlook goes, is that far too many color photographers might be capable technicians, but have never learned the difference between effective color and outright noise. Less can often be more. Restriction and limitation within the realistic parameters of a particular film signature can actually be liberating. Too many options to let it all just hang out, like so many digital apps now allow, and there's apt to no sense of direction at all.

Black and white, on the other hand, is inherently an abstracted medium tonality-wise, and relatively straightforward to do in a darkroom. You can make it either as simple as you wish, or take it as far as you wish in terms of sophistication and fine-tuning.

 

[Horatio]

I am a dreamer.

Me too.

 

[MattKing]

I am a dreamer.

"You may say I am a dreamer, but (you) are not the only one ..."
Kind of works with that thread about Visualization.

 

[BrianShaw]

Well, imagine that…

 

[Alex Benjamin]

God created life in color. Color is the real world

Black and white world of dreams.

Cute, but utter nonsense.

Few works as "dreamier" than Saul Leiter's color work.

And when I think of all the great photojournalists from the 30s, 40s and 50s - from Dorothea Lange to Eugene Smith to Cartier-Bresson to Robert Capa - I see reality, and a will to show reality. A lot of the stuff they showed you couldn't dream of.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Folks - a little thread drift is expected, but this is enough to raise a moderator's hackles!
Back to the subject please.

Subject. Weren't we talking about archeology?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Cute, but utter nonsense.

Few works as "dreamier" than Saul Leiter's color work.

And when I think of all the great photojournalists from the 30s, 40s and 50s - from Dorothea Lange to Eugene Smith to Cartier-Bresson to Robert Capa - I see reality, and a will to show reality. A lot of the stuff they showed you couldn't dream of.

If color film came out before BW film, we might not even be shooting BW.

 

[pbromaghin]

Carry two cameras, one for color and one for black & white, or two film backs. Color compositions and black & white compositions take different thinking. Doing both at the same time out are good for personal growth and development.

I tried this. Adjusting my view of the world between the 2 made my head hurt and was a bit depressing. At best I can do it on different days and find it better to go for a week or more in one or the other.

 

[BrianShaw]

My viewfinders are in color no matter what film is in the camera.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

If color film came out before BW film, we might not even be shooting BW.

Well, there were color photographs as early as the 1860s. Different additive techniques were experimented on in the early 20th century and the subtractive technique was developed in the 30s. Ilford had a 35mm color transparency film (Dufay Color) available in the mid-30s, and Kodachrome was introduced in 1935. Development (pun intended) of color and black and white run parallel pretty much throughout the history of film. Cartier-Bresson could have shot almost his entire output in color if he had wanted to.

 

[Philippe-Georges]

God created life in color. Color is the real world

Black and white world of dreams.

God created LIGHT in witch life is evolving, and colour is a part of it. The creation of life was a later step in that creating process.
Black and white are technically no colours, BUT, black is NO light (zero intensity) and white is ALL light (maximum intensity), and in between are all the shades of intensity of all kinds {among them greys (more than 50...)}.
So, dear Mohmad, to my humble and non theological opinion, Black is before, and White is after God created light. Witch gives to B&W a broader 'sight'...

 

[mohmad khatab]

I am a dreamer.

Dreams are an authentic and legitimate right for all people, and they are free.

 

[mohmad khatab]

God created LIGHT in witch life is evolving, and colour is a part of it. The creation of life was a later step in that creating process.
Black and white are technically no colours, BUT, black is NO light (zero intensity) and white is ALL light (maximum intensity), and in between are all the shades of intensity of all kinds {among them greys (more than 50...)}.
So, dear Mohmad, to my humble and non theological opinion, Black is before, and White is after God created light. Witch gives to B&W a broader 'sight'...

Hello my dear brother
Your opinion deserves respect and appreciation.

 

[mohmad khatab]

Folks - a little thread drift is expected, but this is enough to raise a moderator's hackles!
Back to the subject please.

OK .DON