Debating Color—And Digital—Photos As Art

[roteague]

Try Fuji NPS colour negative film if you want see what you can do with colour. Scans very well in Silverfast and has gorgeous colour (no, it doesn't look like Velvia, thank God.) Portra VC is interesting too.

Matter of taste Paul. I love Velvia, it's the only film I have found that truthfully represents color the way I see it.

 

[Shinnya]

Why not? I mean the argument that red does not have to be red is just as valid as the argument it should be red to me.

Some people enjoy the process of abstraction by making B/W or, a better term, "monochromatic" images, others don't.

Also, in "B/W photography," there are "colors" you play with which we know as "tones." It is just that these colors are much more muted and "subtle" than the colors we know of. I think everything does not have to be super-saturated colors as we are already bombarded with the colors of the advertisement and other "loud" media in my opinion.

Warmly,
Tsuyoshi

Why in God's name would you want to paint a red door black?

 

[Skip]

Matter of taste Paul. I love Velvia, it's the only film I have found that truthfully represents color the way I see it.

Absolutely a matter of personal taste - in your case, for the work you do, Velvia works well. NPS would lose itself in the atmospherics of your landscapes, whereas Velvia holds together. I shoot mostly Provia in transparency, but I have been enjoying the subtleties that NPS seems to excel in, in soft light.

Regards

Paul Coppin

 

[Lee L]

Why in God's name would you want to paint a red door black?

Ask Jagger and Richards (The Rolling Stones). I think they were writing about depression, but you can decide for yourself. http://home.swipnet.se/~w-35264/lyrics/black.html

Note the smiley in the original post. It was peripheral humor.

Lee

 

[Ed_Davor]

Sometimes it is really difficult to make people understand what you are trying to do in photography. It's difficult as it is to explain to common people why you shoot film, and even more difficutl to explain why you shoot BW film-

Here is an example:
A friend drove me one day to leave some film for developing and I tried to buy some BW but they didn't have any in stock

so he asks me:
Why do you want to shoot BW?

me:
how else am I supose to get BW images?

him:
well use a digital camera and desaturate on the computer

me:
It's not the same

him:
what do you mean? Both images are black and white and have no color.

me:
well next time you want to drink some 100% orange juice,
make yourself that artificial sirup with the aroma of orange instead.


-----------

another little story

Another friend was trying to convince me that movies shot on HD cameras look better than those shot on film

so I said:
motion picture film can capture more gradations of light, more color nuances than HD cameras

so he said (this is hilarious):
yea, but you don't need so much colors, when a filmmaker sets up a scene, he will use maybe 5-10 different colors on the wardrobe and props, he doesn't need millions of different colors
lol

-----------------------------------

another example of trying to justify using film:

So I say to some friends that I was considering buying a medium format camera.

They have no idea what is that, so I try to explain to them

me:
you know those little box-cameras with a crank on the side that you use to turn film

them:
laugter, yea, why don't you also use that big magnesium
flash thing (they were refering to the ilumination used in 19th century flash photography)


It seems to me that the digital age has gotten everyone semi-interested in technology, specially photography.
Photography was reserved before only for people who knew what they were doing.
Suddenly, digital cameras come, and everyone thinks they are experts on photography. Computer magazine journalists reviewing digital cameras, as if they have not hijacked photo technology expertise.
Those who have switched to digital after long years of using film, still have some perspective on what is what in photography,
but those who have never shot photography before they started spending on a new digital point&shit cameras really have no idea what is what.
Many people laugh at view cameras and think they deliver grainy outdated images or something.
Oh the ignorance

 

[doughowk]

One of problems with color in Photography is how do you "grab" or get the attention of a color satiated viewer. Eliot Porter, one of the pioneers in color photography, is almost forgotten possible because of the muted tones of most of his prints. Galen Rowell achieved some recognition thru his almost surreal images. But how can you go further in color? Unless there is a return to appreciation of subtler tones, probably only digital graphic artists can achieved the vibrant colors currently admired by viewing public.

 

[Lee L]

Eliot Porter, one of the pioneers in color photography, is almost forgotten possible because of the muted tones of most of his prints.

Interesting take. Porter and Ernst Haas would likely be the top two on my list of fine color photographers.

Lee

 

[doughowk]

Eliot Porter

July/August 2003 issue of View Camera contained an article on Porter by Michael More.

In terms of his visual intelligence, technical mastery... influence on other photographers, museum holdings, titles published, and publications sold - Eliot Porter stands alone. There was only one problem. By 2001, no one seemed to care.

and

But William Eggleston's color print of a tricycle on a suburban Memphis siewalk sells for $150,000 - 15 to 30 times the price of a Porter. The extrinsic value of a hot photographer has become, the New York Times wrote last year:"the new, new thing in the art market"