Do You Like Landscape Photography and if so Color or B&W

Bob Carnie · Aug 8, 2006

I am very interested in Black and White Platinum with a colour Gum layer over top, I am keen to learn this process from Kerik within the next year.

Best of both worlds. archival B&W and colour combined.

reellis67 · Aug 8, 2006

I like *some* landscapes, but not others. It's difficult to say specifically what attracts me to some but not others, but I have no *general* preference for either color or black and white. For me, color, or the lack thereof, all depends on the feeling that is imparted by the photo and if the color adds or detracts from that feeling. Sometimes color does the best job, but other times the abstracted feel of black and white does it, but it always seem to be tied to the overall feeling.

A couple of the main problems I have with some color landscapes are over-saturated colors, and the looming foreground object, usually a rock. These once were attractive to some extent, but they have become so common that they now prevent me from being able to enjoy an otherwise aesthetically pleasing image. Color can be very powerful when used by someone who understands how to use it, but there are times when black and white drives the photo and color would just be a distraction. Other times the lack of skill results in a misuse of color, which is like any other misjudgment can be annoying.

To put things in context, I used to shoot a lot of landscapes but in recent years have not shot many at all. Most of my landscapes were in color, and my goal was to use the color for emphasis, but as films became more and more saturated, I found that I preferred using black and white. Now I will use either depending on the specific setting, but I still lean toward more black and white landscapes than color, when I shoot them.

- Randy

blansky · Aug 8, 2006

I tend to like what I like.

If it's spectacular I like it. Doesn't have to be flashy, just spectacular. I like Roberts (roteague) work as well a some other APUGers.

I used to shoot a fair amount of color landscape stuff but found that it stayed in drawers. Now I only shoot B&W and I print and display it.

I do think that most landscape work would benefit greatly from having people or a human "element" as part of the image.

Unfortunately, most landscape photographers, aren't people photographers so you rarely see it.

Michael

highpeak · Aug 8, 2006

I prefer B&W, it often touched my heart. My favorite photographer is Wynn Bullock.

wildbill · Aug 8, 2006

Yes. Right now i shoot b+w mostly with some velvia and b+w infrared thrown in. I like to use the right tools for the job so i carry all 3 types of film just in case. I usually get better results with b+w though. I've got plenty of good slides but haven't been satisfied with the printing aspect up to this point.

vinny

raucousimages · Aug 8, 2006

I work mostly in B&W because it gives me control from start to finish and I love the look but some subjects just need to be shot in color.

Last weekend there was a cloud formation over the Great Salt Lake that showed horizontal banding of the rainbow. I had to shoot that in color. The B&W I shot that day show just another cloud, the pools and rocks on the shore look good but the color in the cloud was the shot of the day.

On a typical day out I have between 20 and 40 sheets of B&W and 4 to 14 sheets of color. I shoot an average of 10 B&W a day. I don't shoot color every time I go out but I keep it if I need it and there are days I only shoot 1 or 2 color and no B&W at all.

Lopaka · Aug 8, 2006

Landscape is mostly what I shoot. I like to portray nature in all its wondrous and colorful glory. I shoot mostly color transparencies, also shoot some B&W. There are just some things that work better in B&W where color would be more of a distraction. (I've seen some stunning examples posted here). I wouldn't say one is easier or harder than the other, just different. It is, however, much harder to find good color training or workshops.

I haven't shot B&W in 30+ years. I haven't shot transparencies in 30+ years. I am doing both now, and mostly due to APUG influence, so it's all your fault! I have found much that is helpful here.

Bob

anyte · Aug 8, 2006

I'm not as big a fan of landscape as I am nature in general but I do find some landscape photographs to be appealing. I definitely prefer color but I'm very particular about the quality of color. I prefer colors that, in my mind, are more representative of what I am accustomed to seeing with my own eyes in nature.

kjsphoto · Aug 8, 2006

I love landscape for sure.

This is a tuff one for me and this is only my opinion, not flaming anyone here, so with that said, I loved using color as in my earlier days that is all I shot, mainly chromes, but now as I get older I appreciate the qualities of BW as I have finally understood what the medium is all about.

For me color is more about creating pretty picture as the colors can give the viewer a sense of joy or happiness with rich greens, blues or yellows, but to me color is just that, pretty pictures as people get lost in the color and not being able to see the image for what it is. Color is reality and nothing more in a sense as they, the viewer cannot get pass the color to understand what the photographer was actually trying to accomplish and most of the time you receive, That is a pretty picture.

With BW it is more about the vision and the emotion as BW strips away the color only leaving the image and subject itself to impact how the viewer will react. To me it seems that with BW you have to have a better mastery of darkroom skills, to pull off the impact of what you are trying to portray, as you do not have color to help you get your point across or to create an expression from the viewer. And yes I have printed both and both fro many years so I am not slamming color printers at all as I use to only print cibachromes exclusively back in the day.

Anyway, if that makes sense I have no idea.

Just my two cents

tim atherton · Aug 8, 2006

kjsphoto said:
.

For me color is more about creating pretty picture as the colors can give the viewer a sense of joy or happiness with rich greens, blues or yellows, but to me color is just that, pretty pictures as people get lost in the color and not being able to see the image for what it is. Color is reality and nothing more in a sense as they, the viewer cannot get pass the color to understand what the photographer was actually trying to accomplish and most of the time you receive, That is a pretty picture.

well - only if you use colour to make "pretty" (aka sentimental - perhaps one of the most insidious emotions...) pictures

Robert Kerwin · Aug 8, 2006

This question just made me realize something about my reaction to landscape photographs. When I see a print initially, I would say that I am attracted about equally to B&W and color landscapes. Viewed over time, however, I find myself losing interest in the color landscape, while the B&W holds my interest much longer. I'm not completely sure why that is, perhaps simply my own familiarity with the B&W process, or perhaps it's just a personal aesthetic. I also think there might be a tendency to tire more quickly of brighter colors vs. muted colors or monochrome.

- Robert

David A. Goldfarb · Aug 8, 2006

I shoot both, but tend toward B&W.

I don't think color would do anything for this image, for instance. It would make it "too literal," as it were--

I guess I shoot color when I think the color is the interesting thing about the image. I think of this shot, for instance, as a flag with three stripes, and on the print it's interesting to see the purple flowers in the alfalfa in the forground, which would have been lost in B&W--

Or in the attached image from the Halawa Valley on Moloka'i (2002), I think I got a more interesting contrast between the water and the grass in color than I would have had in B&W.

Lee Shively · Aug 8, 2006

I like landscapes in both B&W and color. I only shoot B&W these days but I used to shoot a lot of color nature and landscapes. Bought a 4x5 about 20 years ago and tried to become the new David Muench. It didn't work out so I sold the 4x5 outfit. These days, my idea of the landscape includes urban areas as well as natural areas.

jovo · Aug 8, 2006

I see so much color work that just doesn't explore the subject at all beyond rendering a sunrise or sunset or 'golden hour' scene with no particular connectedness to what's in it that I sometimes think I have no use for such photographs at all. Then, I see some incredibly probing work, like Burkett's "Silver Maple and Rock Wall" of which I have a print, that I completely change my mind and wish I did more with color than I do (partly, as I've noted elsewhere, a function of being a bit red/green blind). That said, my blood pressure spikes every time I see a B&W landscape...not a computer monitor image, but the real thing. Even if it turns out to be a really pedestrian print, I have that initial, visceral reaction. It's just more exciting. I've no idea why.

michaelsalomon · Aug 8, 2006

I prefer to shoot landscape, and by landscape that means the landscape of a national park or the landscape of queens ny. My first love is black and white, but for the past year I've been shooting mostly color. What Ive tried to do (not sure if im successful at all, look at my gallery) Is to make photographs in color that are not just solid representations, or reproductions of the landscapes that interest me, but more so, impressions of how the landscape made me feel at the time I took the picture (im sure that sounds pretty cliche, sorry) As much as I like shooting at dawn or dusk, capturing the "magic hour" lately, I've found that my images of that nature don't inspire me at all, and capturing images of that type in either color or monchrome wouldnt change my feeling. For now, im struggling with what medium to use color or b/w? Its a tough choice, but I guess thats part of being a photographer.

Early Riser · Aug 8, 2006

I like landscape, preferably B&W.

David Henderson · Aug 8, 2006

I like antiques and I like modern painting. By which I mean that amongst a mass of uninteresting and downright unpleasant material there is a small proportion of items that I enjoy greatly. It's the same with landscape photography. Most examples have little or a sharply transient appeal, but sometimes I see photographs that excite and inspire me. They can be in colour or b&w, but either way they are likely to be an imaginative and individual way of treating a subject rather than a piece of national park in nice light. They are as likely to be an urban scene as a wilderness.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to become enthused by simply capturing an attractive place in good light- whether I've done it or its someone else's work. The application of imagination and/or some element of personal style is now much more important to me than the accurate, natural rendition of a scene as it appears to the eye.

bjorke · Aug 8, 2006

df, I liked your shot and the fact that it was neither stock golden-hour beach nor a post-Adams brutalised landscape but something at once contemporary in feel and beautiful.

Arnold Shoenberg said:
there is a great deal more to be said in the key of C major.

bjorke · Aug 9, 2006

As to the original question I'd say B&W because I dislike dealing with labs. My current project is making me rethink that (and unlike most of my recent-years color work, I don't want to do it in digital).

roteague · Aug 9, 2006

I've avoided answer this question, because in my case the answer would be quite obvious, and because I wanted to provide more depth in my reasons.

Yes, I like landscapes, and I only do them in color. I see nothing wrong or limiting in B&W, but B&W fails to meet my vision. When I walk around during the day, I constantly amazed at the vibrant color I see around me, simple things like the color of the sky, the water, even cars and buildings.

Color is part of our natural world. It impacts even how we feel about ourselves and the world around us, and can impart a sense of "moment". When I am out photographing, this sense of "moment" is what I am striving to capture. For example, in the following image:

In this image, the moment includes the movement of the wave as it crashes on the shore, it includes the hightlight of the sun on the plants in the foreground, it includes the reflection of the sun on the sand. This is a moment that has happened, and will never happen again.

I know a lot of people, including some here, want to dismiss the idea of color landscapes as simply "trite" or "colorful calendar" art, but to do so, IMO, shows a lack of awareness of what can be seen in the natural world. Some people see their photography as a means of expressing the "art" within them, but I see my photography as a means of expressing the glory of the world that we live in. We live in an ugly world, my images are my attempt to bring about a sense of beauty.

Dinesh · Aug 9, 2006

Great image, and an even better explanation of your choice.

bjorke · Aug 9, 2006

roteague said:
We live in an ugly world, my images are my attempt to bring about a sense of beauty.

And that's certainly a pretty pic and illustrative of your desire for a 'moment' (exactly what I thought about even before reading your description).

Given that we do live in a world that contains so many postcards and calendars, are there ways to excercise your sense of beauty beyond the obvious sources (I've spent plenty of time on the windward beaches too -- and know well that they are beutiful without having to do much extra work)? I think your desire for a 'moment' is a step in that direction

jimcollum · Aug 9, 2006

I'll go either way, depending on the scene and the impact. when shooting film, i'd ususally carry both color and b/w holders.

or

either could have worked with the other's film.. i felt the most impact emotionally with the way there were captured.

roteague · Aug 9, 2006

Love that top image, Jim. I can feel the cold all the way over here in Hawaii.

roteague · Aug 9, 2006

bjorke said:
And that's certainly a pretty pic and illustrative of your desire for a 'moment' (exactly what I thought about even before reading your description).

Thanks bjorke. Moment is what made HCB the renowned photographer he was.

Do You Like Landscape Photography and if so Color or B&W

Bob Carnie

reellis67

blansky

highpeak

wildbill

raucousimages

Lopaka

anyte

kjsphoto

tim atherton

Robert Kerwin

David A. Goldfarb

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Lee Shively

jovo

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michaelsalomon

Early Riser

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bjorke

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roteague

Dinesh

bjorke

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roteague

roteague

Do You Like Landscape Photography and if so Color or B&W

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