Color vs Black and White, the eternal debate

[nikos79]

See my post at #289

I meant share in colour vs b&w

 

[nikos79]

Or here. Here I might lean even a bit towards black and white as the colour version is almost like a monochromatic one but again the photo shows the. same thing. But the warm colours might create different feelings and associations or? Or the black and white different abstractions? In the end I think they are both very good photos.

 

[Vaughn]

I have been thinking about it, and I don’t think that can be right, given that most digital photos are taken in colour by default, and presumably some of those would work equally well or better in b/w. So colour is dispensable in at least some cases. Alternatively, would you say that if one is to make a successful b/w image, it is necessary to imagine the scene in b/w before taking the shot? Actually I’m somewhat inclined to the latter view, although I am not aware of doing this myself.

Speaking for only myself, I do not imagine scenes in B&W, but am aware of the transitions happening in the process of creating a B&W carbon or platinum/palladium print from the scene in front of the camera. For example, how the wonderful yellows of Fall in the redwoods can become guiding sources of light within an image.

Part of my image-making is an attempt to convey the sense of place. Under the redwoods part of that sense can be found in the subtle shades of green and changes in textures. So color is very important in my work, the prints just happen to be in B&W (often with a hint of warmth).

Recently framed 4x10 carbon print (from 4x10 camera negative), iPhone reproduction

 

[Don_ih]

I have been thinking about it, and I don’t think that can be right, given that most digital photos are taken in colour by default, and presumably some of those would work equally well or better in b/w.

That's if you believe the colour photo and the b&w photo are the same photo. In the instance that what you are photographing is colour, can you really say that desaturating it keeps it the same photo?

You thereby claim that colour can't be the actual content of the photo but is secondary to whatever is shared between a colour photo and its desaturated version.

 

[snusmumriken]

You surprise me. I didn’t know Allard’s work, but I’ve just tried de-saturating a few of his photos, and they seem to lose their interest quite dramatically…which is what I’d expect, but you did say that a good photo should work either way.

I may need to clarify. I certainly don’t mean that there’s no composition. What gives his work its impact (in my eyes) is the fact that the composition is done with both tone and colour. If you remove the colour, the work is significantly diminished (IMHO - although I’d probably be glad to have taken it!).

Maybe we are all agreeing about this, just saying it in different ways.

 

[nikos79]

If you remove the colour, the work is significantly diminished

Maybe we are all agreeing about this, just saying it in different ways.

Well I certainly don’t

 

[nikos79]

You thereby claim that colour can't be the actual content of the photo but is secondary to whatever is shared between a colour photo and its desaturated version.

Well now I might go even further with an even more absurd personal opinion and you might not like it at all:

If the colour is indeed the actual content of the image then the image is weak imho

 

[Arthurwg]

battle between tones vs hues. I am sure there are no losers.

+1

 

[Arthurwg]

What do you think? They both look equally good to me. I prefer the colour version but again I don't think that something changed dramatically

Perhaps they are "equally good," but each tells a different story.

 

[Arthurwg]

That's if you believe the colour photo and the b&w photo are the same photo. In the instance that what you are photographing is colour, can you really say that desaturating it keeps it the same photo?

There's a good point here.

 

[Craig]

If the colour is indeed the actual content of the image then the image is weak imho

Why? What makes an image "strong" or "weak"? And why is colour not a part of that?

 

[GregY]

Well now I might go even further with an even more absurd personal opinion and you might not like it at all:

If the colour is indeed the actual content of the image then the image is weak imho

I disagree entirely. Many colour photos work because of the colour.....strong composition not withstanding.
That's certainly the case with Allard's work as well as a lot of Nat Geo photographers back in the Kodachrome days.

 

[Don_ih]

Well now I might go even further with an even more absurd personal opinion and you might not like it at all:

If the colour is indeed the actual content of the image then the image is weak imho

I don't like or dislike it. It follows from what you already said.

It's still wrong, incidentally.

 

[chuckroast]

Well now I might go even further with an even more absurd personal opinion and you might not like it at all:

If the colour is indeed the actual content of the image then the image is weak imho

Well, lets take that to its logical conclusion since you appear to be in the thrall of deconstructionist methods:

If the colour is indeed the actual content of the image then the image is weak
If the shadow is indeed the actual content of the image then the image is weak
If the geometry is indeed the actual content of the image then the image is weak
If the perspective is indeed the actual content of the image then the image is weak
If the subject is indeed the actual content of the image then the image is weak

If you deconstruct one compositional component to dismiss it, all the rest are on the table too.

(All you are left with is what deconstructionism always leaves: You're down to the coffee stains the artist left on his notepad and the cigarette butts in his ashtray. Deconstructionist methods replace content with manufactured versions of the art never intended by the artist.)

I think not.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

If the colour is the actual content of the image

I have no idea what that means .

But I'm happy you learned to spell "colour" correctly .

 

[DREW WILEY]

Greg - I never did think the vast majority of Natl Geo published shots amounted to anything in an artistic sense. What they did well is complement the articles, journalistically. I dropped my subscription when they started including artsified digitally manipulated images (even if fine-print admitted to be such), while at the same time they switched to matte printing paper, and then also became symptomized by a very heavy editorial hand beating us over the head with US political controversies. It had nothing to do with whether I agree with their editorial position or not - I was just sick of hearing the same incessant drumbeat. I would have preferred a kind of "Geography" allowing some mental escape from all of that, like in previous decades of the magazine.

 

[chuckroast]

Greg - I never did think the vast majority of Natl Geo published shots amounted to anything in an artistic sense. What they did well is complement the articles, journalistically. I dropped my subscription when they started including artsified digitally manipulated images (even if fine-print admitted to be such), while at the same time they switched to matte printing paper, and then also bore the effect oa a very heavy editorial hand was in predictably beating us over the head with US political controversies (it had nothing to do with whether I agree with their editorial position or not - I was just sick of hearing the same incessant drumbeat).

I lost interest when they stopped using Kodachrome

 

[GregY]

Greg - I never did think the vast majority of Natl Geo published shots amounted to anything in an artistic sense. What they did well is complement the articles, journalistically. I dropped my subscription when they started including artsified digitally manipulated images (even if fine-print admitted to be such), while at the same time they switched to matte printing paper, and then also bore the effect oa a very heavy editorial hand was in predictably beating us over the head with US political controversies (it had nothing to do with whether I agree with their editorial position or not - I was just sick of hearing the same incessant drumbeat).

Do you level that criticism at William Allard? BTW I never had a subscription....but Nat Geo was the photographic door to foreign places i subsequently visited decades later.
Wm Allard's books "The Vanishing Breed" & "The Photographic Essay"......led me later to photographers like Jay Dusard, Kurt Markus & later... Adam Jahiel.

 

[DREW WILEY]

I'll only say this - sometimes NG hires really talented photographers, but in the process of re-cropping for publication size, and even with respect to specific image selection, they frequently butcher original compositions. Or an image which might look quite impressive large ends up the size of a postage stamp on a magazine endsheet.

I subscribed for the travel stories; and the attached pictures complemented these. If I want to see what some of their greats could do, like Bradford Washburn, I buy a folio book of his images, or go see an actual exhibition. I don't expect a faithful reproduction in their magazine, any more than I'd hold out serious expectations for an AA image published in Sunset mag.

Allard did have guts moving in close to rodeo action with a wide angle lens. Growing up, I played in a hay fort with the son of a rodeo Hall-of-Famer who got gored by bulls six times in his career. He became rich at it, and ended up with an enormous ranch (half a million acres). He bred Brahma bulls for sake of meanness; the nastier they were, the more rodeo points they could score for a rider. Some of his fences were two miles apart; and I remember the fog lifting, and the outlines of those bulls starting to appear, staring our direction, with no trees in sight. ... crawling on our bellies in the shallowest of depressions. I've been treed by bulls quite a few times too.

 

[GregY]

I'll only say this - sometimes NG hires really talented photographers, but in the process of re-cropping for publication size, and even with respect to specific image selection, they frequently butcher original compositions. Or an image which might look quite impressive large ends up the size of a postage stamp on a magazine endsheet.

I subscribed for the travel stories; and the attached pictures complemented these. If I want to see what some of their greats could do, like Bradford Washburn, I buy a folio book of his images, or go see an actual exhibition. I don't expect a faithful reproduction in their magazine, any more than I'd hold out serious expectations for an AA image published in Sunset mag.

Allard did have guts moving in close to rodeo action with a wide angle lens. Growing up, I played in a hay fort with the son of a rodeo Hall-of-Famer who got gored by bulls six times in his career. He became rich at it, and ended up with an enormous ranch (half a million acres). He bred Brahma bulls for sake of meanness; the nastier they were, the more rodeo points they could score for a rider. Some of his fences were two miles apart; and I remember the fog lifting, and the outlines of those bulls starting to appear, staring our direction, with no trees in sight. ... crawling on our bellies in the shallowest of depressions. I've been treed by bulls quite a few times too.

Drew, decades ago, Nat Geo was in laundromats, libraries.....so long before the internet. And students/ dirt bag climbers weren't buying folio works.
Bradford Washburn is 2nd only to Vittorio Sella in my pantheon. I had the privilege of having dinner with Bradford & Barbara in 1999 (ish) when an exhibition of his work was shown at the Whyte Museum in Banff.

 

[bluechromis]

I think that it is unfortunate that black and white versus color became such a dichotomy in photography, unlike in other art fields.

I think the notion that everything ought to be color "just because", just because that is how the world appears, is normal, is misguided. I think that often photographers face a problem of too much information in a scene that distracts from the main message of the image. There is a need to simplify the image and eliminating color is one way to do that, but there are others as well.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Yeah Greg, my bookshelf also includes Sella, Washburn, Shirakawa, etc. They transcended mere scenic genre. I've had some famous climbers as personal friends, and most of them made at least some of their income publishing their expedition photos (including my own nephew) - but it's not the same thing. Whenever I gave my nephew a framed print of some special location we visited together, I made him promise not to draw any dotted lines on it as an intended climbing route!

 

[Craig]

I think that it is unfortunate that black and white versus color became such a dichotomy in photography, unlike in other art fields.

I don't think that is actually the case in the real world. Many photographers use both B&W and colour, depending upon the application and what their desired final result is and don't torture themselves about it. It's just another tool in the toolbox that can be used.

 

[GregY]

I don't think that is actually the case in the real world. Many photographers use both B&W and colour, depending upon the application and what their desired final result is and don't torture themselves about it. It's just another tool in the toolbox that can be used.

or either....B&W or colour ......and it doesn't keep them up nights.