Color vs Black and White, the eternal debate

MattKing · 2025-08-05T17:46:52-0400

warden said:
You are getting a lot of feedback from the community and moderating team

FWIW, I don't see much sign of the feedback coming from any of us while wearing our "Moderator" hats.
It almost entirely seems to be coming from our "engaged experienced and active member" roles.

nikos79 · 2025-08-05T17:47:59-0400

warden said:
I've been following this thread and enjoying it.

Don't assume everyone here disagrees with you. Many people read this forum without posting after all, and who knows what they're thinking? I respect that you are engaging with this forum in English, which if I recall correctly is not your native language. I appreciate your participation here and hope it continues because you have ideas that are not the norm here, which is healthy.

You are getting a lot of feedback from the community and moderating team about how this forum works, and the type of communication that is acceptable here. People are investing their time and energy helping you. That is a compliment! Please repay that compliment by adjusting your approach and you will find this a welcoming and educational place.

Photrio is unique on the internet because it offers deep photographic knowledge and a willingness to help one another learn and grow. Stick around. Share pictures.

Thanks a lot for this post it was really encouraging. Yes, English is not my native tongue, that is why I resorted to AI at my first posts but since I understood that people here value authenticity I kept it row. Truly many different people with interesting and smart ideas

warden · 2025-08-05T17:54:30-0400

MattKing said:
FWIW, I don't see much sign of the feedback coming from any of us while wearing our "Moderator" hats.
It almost entirely seems to be coming from our "engaged experienced and active member" roles.

Hi Matt, that sounds good to me. The hats are sometimes invisible but I like that moderators participate as well as moderate here.

nikos79 · 2025-08-05T17:57:49-0400

dcy said:
I really wish you would stop referring to photographs you don't like as "bad" or "awful". You clearly have an uncommonly narrow set of criteria of what photographs you like. The photographers who took these photos are not unskilled or incompetent. The high-contrast scene is not a mistake. This is a deliberate choice and it creates a mood. Evidently you do not perceive the mood, and you do not see how it would be lost. But that's your own limitation, not the photographer's. If we are talking of purely about aesthetic preferences, it seems to me, based on your descriptions, like the photos that you like are photos I might find boring and uninteresting.

Ok understood your point.
Maybe i will try to explain then why the first black and white photo doesn't resonate with me and perhaps you might understand a bit my point.

This is a typical example of what I call "instagrammable" pboto. Sure the photographer is skilled and competent as any good Lightroom user or graphic designer. I am pretty sure this photo has at least 3000 likes on Instagram and I am also pretty sure that the photographer has tons of similar "moody", neo-noir styled pictures.

And, so what? If I ask ChatGPT I can get hundreds of such pictures. When I see these kind of picture I understand that behind them is a skilled photographer that wants to impress. And when something screams for impression is usually unattractive to me. It undermines my intelligence if it tries to impress me with using cheap tricks.

The photo that can impress me doesn't scream for attention. Usually it is simple, sometimes might even seem mundane, but through its simplicity it can accept many reads and is complex.

While this photo looks mostly constructed to create a mood a photo thay I find attractive will create the mood through associations and clever use of the photographic elements. It will create tension through some unusual angle, some powerful dialogue between its subjects, some cleverer use of the four angles of the frame.

The photo above is single-dimensional. It's reading is usually exhausted within the first seconds and are obvious. And thus boring

Maybe I would have accepted it as an "OK" photo if it wasn't for the dark human figure there. But this was the cherry on the cake that made it "too much" for me. Oh yes perhaps you could have added some long trench coat too to complete the neo noir feeling. Dear photographer whoever they were if you like neo-noir find a new Humphrey Baugart and go make a movie! Don't have to.take photos!

pentaxuser · 2025-08-05T19:03:03-0400

Craig said:
In the photo posted, the Larch trees change colour and drop their needles in the fall, they are only that yellow colour for about 2 weeks at most. So I think that the colour is essential to the photo, otherwise it's a just another mountain and tree photo.

Yes I never for a moment thought that my experience or Matt's was going to change your mind I simply thought it worth mentioning that it was a similar scene to that shown by Matt that persuaded me that b&w had its place in such scenes when I previously had a similar outlook to that of yourself

pentaxuser

koraks · 2025-08-06T02:25:27-0400

nikos79 said:
And, so what? If I ask ChatGPT I can get hundreds of such pictures.

It's hard to stand out if there are billions of the same already around. Maybe standing out isn't always the purpose.

"We are all individuals!"

gary mulder · 2025-08-06T02:54:51-0400

nikos79 said:
. Dear photographer whoever they were if you like neo-noir find a new Humphrey Baugart and go make a movie! Don't have to.take photos!

To me this sounds patronising.

koraks · 2025-08-06T03:03:45-0400

gary mulder said:
To me this sounds patronising.

I agree. From both a personal and a moderator's perspective. I conclude that neither fierce criticism, nor more gentle approaches help to set a more constructive tone in @nikos79's posts.

nikos79 · 2025-08-06T03:25:22-0400

gary mulder said:
To me this sounds patronising.

It was ironic of course but the photographer is not a member on Photrio, otherwise I would have never expressed like that. But sure you can remove it

koraks · 2025-08-06T03:27:11-0400

nikos79 said:
It was ironic of course but the photographer is not a member on Photrio, otherwise I would have never expressed like that.

So you're OK saying something like this about someone when they're not around, but you wouldn't say it to their face?

nikos79 · 2025-08-06T03:34:19-0400

koraks said:
So you're OK saying something like this about someone when they're not around, but you wouldn't say it to their face?

They are already successful photographers and famous on Instagram I dont think they will take my words seriously or get hurt even in the lowest chances they might read that posts here

Theoretically speaking if I had them face to face of course I wouldn't speak like that, what you think?

koraks · 2025-08-06T03:42:43-0400

nikos79 said:
Theoretically speaking if I had them face to face of course I wouldn't speak like that

I see.

gary mulder · 2025-08-06T03:53:59-0400

I took the liberty to look this image. https://www.nikosdiamantis.com/s/R0002711.jpg. Way is it a color image ?

nikos79 · 2025-08-06T04:24:17-0400

gary mulder said:
I took the liberty to look this image. https://www.nikosdiamantis.com/s/R0002711.jpg. Way is it a color image ?

Sometimes I convert them to color mostly in black and white because i like it more. But usually according the mood I might change the photo to bw and back to color (since I do digital it is color by default)

But actually in the beginning I had this one as black and white. Do you like it?

nikos79 · 2025-08-06T04:25:57-0400

koraks said:
I see.

I am sorry my tone was bad and I apologise. I wanted to make a joke with the noir film analogy but came out bad

koraks · 2025-08-06T04:31:37-0400

Okay, I understand. Thanks for clarifying. It sounded like pretty harsh criticism to me. The way I see it, criticism is OK, but especially if it's harsh, I feel there should be a clear argumentation underlying it that extends beyond an individual's taste.

nikos79 · 2025-08-06T04:44:36-0400

koraks said:
It's hard to stand out if there are billions of the same already around. Maybe standing out isn't always the purpose.

"We are all individuals!"

Yes, but that is my point. You don't have to stand out, but I believe it is better to try and be yourself and not try to copy styles that would impress others. Of course you might say this is a very personal opinion I just did now and the way I interpreted things (heavily biased) just to clarify that I am not speaking some universal truth or something.

But as an analogy comparing it to your own photos, I immediately see the difference. You are not the first to take photos of fields or trees in the medium, but the way you do it is "honest" you put your personal self and perspective to it. Your photos do not try to impress, they don't scream for "hey look how cool I made it in Lightroom, that shadow I put there vanishing in the dark is awesome, right?". They are just photos as they should be channeling your view of your world. That I find honest, the opposite I find "fake".

Perhaps I am very sensitive into getting these vibes from the photos, but again this is my very own approach on them.

nikos79 · 2025-08-06T04:51:20-0400

dcy said:
B&W photo: “Lonely alleys of Venice,” by ines_maria.
Color photo: Linda Holt

I don't have the original URL where I got the B&W photo (I might find it when I get home) but I was able to do a reverse image search. I've added credits to the original posts.

500px

500px.com

This is the artist just to give credits. It looks exactly as I had suspected very similar photos and the dark figure like a passepartout that you can put it on will on every single photo. This is what we call a maniere in art.

Alex Benjamin · 2025-08-06T05:26:49-0400

Photography has been around now for almost 200 years now, and maybe, just maybe, there's been since the mid-19th century enough good and interesting photographs and photographers that we can talk about that there is no need to start scouring the Internet to find and criticize images by Tom, Dick or Harriet, whose artistry may be modest, according to one's criteria, but who may have created them with an honest and earnest need for self expression, for the pure pleasure of it, or perhaps are trying from them to earn an honest living.

Just sayin'.

nikos79 · 2025-08-06T05:35:46-0400

Alex Benjamin said:
Photography has been around now for almost 200 years now, and maybe, just maybe, there's been since the mid-19th century enough good and interesting photographs and photographers that we can talk about that there is no need to start scouring the Internet to find and criticize images by Tom, Dick or Harriet, whose artistry may be modest, according to one's criteria, but who may have created them with an honest and earnest need for self expression, for the pure pleasure of it, or perhaps are trying from them to earn an honest living.

Just sayin'.

Sure but it was brought up as an example of a good one and had to express my disagreement on it

Alex Benjamin · 2025-08-06T05:38:31-0400

nikos79 said:
Sure but it was brought up as an example of a good one and had to express my disagreement on it

I wasn't pointing anyone in particular. Just making a general comment, expressing my malaise as to where this thread was heading.

nikos79 · 2025-08-06T05:45:55-0400

Alex Benjamin said:
I wasn't pointing anyone in particular. Just making a general comment, expressing my malaise as to where this thread was heading.

Since you like Bill Brandt let's think together if a Bill Brandt high contrast BW period would work well in color

Don_ih · 2025-08-06T05:46:56-0400

nikos79 said:
it was brought up as an example of a good one

The two colour and black and white photos were shown by @dcy as examples of photos where (1) colour was very important (and it is important to that photo, as the subsequent desaturation shows) and (2) to show contrast can be essential to the composition (the second photo would not have the same atmosphere without the darkness and higher contrast). He didn't claim they were good, nice, bad, terrible. You're the one that felt the need to judge the photos.

Alex Benjamin said:
where this thread was heading.

That would be "nowhere".

Alex Benjamin · 2025-08-06T07:34:41-0400

nikos79 said:
Since you like Bill Brandt let's think together if a Bill Brandt high contrast BW period would work well in color

This is interesting because the question makes absolutely no sense to me.

To me, Bill Brandt's photographs look the way they do because Brandt new and understood the properties and possibilities of the medium, i.e., he knew and understood the properties and possibilities of his camera and lenses, knew and understood the properties and possibilities of the film he used, knew and understood the properties and possibilities of the film developer he used, knew and understood the porperties and possibilities of the paper he used, knew and understood the properties and possibilities of the paper developer he used.

In other words, Bill Brandt's photographs are not "black and white images." They are the result of a long and complex process in which every step has been thought of and determined.

And I would say the same about Eggleston's dye transfer prints. They are not just "colour images" but the result of a process as widely different from Brandt's process as a train is to a plane.

Now I understand there may be a generational gap at work here, in the sense that for a generation that came of age with the computer, it does make sense to think "does this look better in colour or in black and white," because it grew up with the knowledge that there is a "colour on / colour off" switch that one can use at will (which of course holds true for the older generation who adapted, by choice or necessity, to the new technology). This is not a critic, just a reminder that technology has an influence in how one thinks — even creatively. Here too we are dealing with the knowledge and understanding of the possibilities of the medium. Just differently.

gary mulder · 2025-08-06T08:06:37-0400

nikos79 said:
Sometimes I convert them to color mostly in black and white because i like it more. But usually according the mood I might change the photo to bw and back to color (since I do digital it is color by default)

But actually in the beginning I had this one as black and white. Do you like it?

You are the artist. If you present your audience with a color photograph it’s not very inviting if you state that is could also be a B&W one. Audience for photographs are extremely impatient and will grant you on average 3 seconds attention. So pic your battle wisely. If I look at your picture en try to contemplate what you are telling me the color of the leaves pinpoint me to the autumn season. For me that season is the periode where trees transcend from cauliflower shapes to graphics formed by tree branches and trunks. This notion of transition strengthens the two tree trunk forms that form the frame of the picture. That’s for me a nice aspect of this picture.
What I don’t manage to comprehend is the building on the left side with the ship in the background.
I also notice that your style mimics the style what is usually described as pictorialism. I’m not very fond of that period of photography. I like to think that photography can stand it’s own and doesn’t have to mimic an other art form.

Color vs Black and White, the eternal debate

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