Below is a photograph by a famous Australian photographer that I was initially only aware of for years as a black and white image, having seen it in exhibitions and reproduced in many books. I recall when I first saw the original colour image it was quite a shock. It felt like a cheap and badly colourised version of a favourite black and white movie.
David Moore - Migrants arriving in Sydney, 1966
A Black and White picture must have a higher grade in content to impress the viewer.
When you show a color picture, often the colors create a cloud in your mind to not look further than that.
...I think color is extremely challenging and b/w is too easy.
In my view, the color photo is SIGNIFICANTLY better. ...
dogshit example (not made up--people actually do this). When I was in HIGH SCHOOL my friend told me that "just because it's in black and white, doesn't make it artistic." 17-year-olds realize this, or at least they did when I was young. Not quite as long ago as most of the people here.
- B&W is more about light than objects. It reveals them through lights and shadows, even their textures. Color is more about the objects themselves, because color depends a lot on them. I speak about what’s the most important for each paradigm, although both light and objects are present in B&W and color photography. Thus, I would metaphorically associate B&W with sculpture (which also is about light and shadows, at least for the watcher), and color with painting.
- B&W reduces the means of expression to the necessary (minimum requirements), and this is an artistic gain.
- B&W belongs natively to an abstract world.
- IMO, B&W was, is, and will be silver gelatin. Color, also IMO, is better suited by digital. And I have a bunch of film equipment, I love too much to go digital. And discovered the B&W and fell in love with it too.
- In B&W the grain can become an artistic (expression) tool, while for color it is less suited.
Colors can be distracting and take away from the artists vision.
I would like to remind people that there are youngsters that view this site, and ask that you all refrain from vulgarities.
I'm sure everyone here has enough of an education to find a better choice of words.
From the dictionary:Sorry I disagree with your post entirely and a lot of the other subjectively emotion and ignorant posts about B&W.
I would like to remind people that there are youngsters that view this site, and ask that you all refrain from vulgarities. Its quite alright to disagree with one another, but please tone down and not use the offensive language. My 12 year old daughter reads some of these posts, and I'm sure there are more kids than any of us realize. A mother posted on here yesterday that she has a young teenage daughter that has a developing passion for photography, and it would be terrible if we put them off because of the liberal use of vulgar language. I'm sure everyone here has enough of an education to find a better choice of words.
Does anyone else do this, look at a well executed color photograph, proclaim its beauty, then move quickly to the next. Then you look at a well made B&W print and find yourself staring at it, not willing to move on, or coming back to it repeatedly. That is "why blackand white".
This is my reasoning also. I can get lost in a bw print.
Mike
If I was a sketch artist instead of a photographer, I could make images with charcoal pencils on Bristol board but nobody would ask me why I don't use colored pastels instead.
I'm a photographer because I can't draw worth a crap so I use black and white film in place of charcoal but lots of people ask me why I don't use color film instead.
What's the difference, really?
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