Why Black & White

[naugastyle]

I am one of those people that has always kind of liked both equally. I think color is extremely challenging and b/w is too easy. The challenge with color comes not only with overcoming the "too plain" stereotypes but the technical issues of getting the right light for correct/beautiful color, which is less an issue with b/w. I shoot b/w at high noon when I need to and still get great shots, because the content trumps the poor light. And the "easy" of b/w is that you can shoot a photo of dogshit and idiots will coo about the artistic quality of the tones. I love b/w because I've liked the DIY side of it for years, but only in the last few months picked up processing my own C-41. I love the starkness and the simplicity. But I also love the reality of color, and the opportunities through timing, composition and film choice to make reality much more beautiful than it was at time of shooting. Or to capture the beauty that was actually there, that b/w sometimes strips away.

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

In my view, the color photo is SIGNIFICANTLY better. The tones are far more subtle, while the black & white photo is terribly contrasty. This isn't an abstract subject--it's people. And for people, I like the reality of the color shot. I'm certainly not saying this type of shot couldn't have been done well in black and white--having just seen the HCB exhibit I have plenty of gorgeous, compelling images in mind--I'm saying this particular photo, or at least your scan of it, is not as good in b/w as it is in color.

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.

Absolutely disagreed. Again, 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 .

 

[phenix]

1. 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.
2. B&W reduces the means of expression to the necessary (minimum requirements), and this is an artistic gain.
3. B&W belongs natively to an abstract world.
4. 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.
5. In B&W the grain can become an artistic (expression) tool, while for color it is less suited.

 

[Larry Bullis]

...I think color is extremely challenging and b/w is too easy.

From my point of view, this is backwards. Color is too easy (see a previous post of mine).

About Black and White, it's like they say about playing Mozart: Easy for beginners, but really challenging for experts. Easy to play the notes, difficult to transcend the mediocre.

In my view, the color photo is SIGNIFICANTLY better. ...

I had a similar impression. Doesn't mean the shooter has to agree with us, though.

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 .

A friend of mine studied with Ralph Hattersley at RIT (this would have been in the late '1950's, early '60's). He reported that Hattersley gave an assignment to photograph snot on a doornob, and make it beautiful.

 

[Athiril]

1. 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.
2. B&W reduces the means of expression to the necessary (minimum requirements), and this is an artistic gain.
3. B&W belongs natively to an abstract world.
4. 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.
5. In B&W the grain can become an artistic (expression) tool, while for color it is less suited.

Sorry I disagree with your post entirely and a lot of the other subjectively emotion and ignorant posts about B&W.


1. B&W isn't more about light, colour is, simple fact, there is no arguing about it, various B&W emulsions have various spectral sensitivities, as does colour, except you get to reproduce those wavelengths of light reflecting in your scene, where you don't with B&W, colour therefore is more about light and has more information about light than B&W.

2. Rubbish, that is a crutch.

3. No it doesn't, that is another crutch, it is up to the photographer to decide how their image appears.

4. Colour isn't better suited to digital or film, it is up to the photographer to decide what is most appropriate or what they most want to do, not down to one person on the internet to decide what's best for everyone else.

5. Again, this is both lame crutch to rely upon and cliche romanticising B&W, and also untrue.

 

[Rick A]

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.

 

[TSSPro]

I choose black and white because it suits my needs, wants and goals for my art.

 

[Bruce Watson]

Colors can be distracting and take away from the artist’s vision.

Yep.

For me, if the image is about color or the relationships between colors, then I do it in color. If the image is about form, shape, texture, and/or rhythm, then I do it in B&W.

Some years I make more color photographs. But most years my photography is heavily biased toward B&W. I don't know why I see the way I do, but it is what it is.

 

[mopar_guy]

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.

+1

 

[phaedrus]

that falls back on you

Sorry I disagree with your post entirely and a lot of the other subjectively emotion and ignorant posts about B&W.

From the dictionary:
ignorant |ˈignərənt|
adjective
lacking knowledge or awareness in general; uneducated or unsophisticated : he was told constantly that he was ignorant and stupid.
• [ predic. ] lacking knowledge, information, or awareness about something in particular : they were ignorant of astronomy.
• informal discourteous or rude : this ignorant, pin-brained receptionist.
• black English easily angered : I is an ignorant man—even police don't meddle with me.
Did you really mean ignorant? I'm asking
a) because I'm always impressed with the depth of knowledge represented here.
b) because you used an adverb where an adjective would have been gramatically correct. Surely you mean "subjective emotion" or emotions.
Of course one can disagree about emotions, but where's the point in that? Ever since the Enlightenment, one sees the need to concede his opinions to one's fellow man.
Those who disagree with that are lacking knowledge or awareness in general or are uneducated or unsophisticated.
QED.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

There really are two main differences between black&white and color photography:

1. In black&white, color is almost entirely removed, so you rely more heavily on the qualities that remain - tone, contrast, texture, sharpness/blur, and grain.
2. Black and white can be manipulated more at the processing stage, both developing and printing.
(There is also an archival aspect to it. I doubt RA4 prints will last as long as a b&w silver print, or platinum for that matter).

Other than that you are photographing the same thing with both mediums. One isn't more artistic than the other, that is entirely subjective and one man's ceiling is another man's floor.

With that said, I think color is distracting in a sense that it is very different, from person to person, how we perceive color. What life experience do you tie in with the color red? What emotions does that color provoke, what memory does it stir? Clearly that's different for all of us, and that, to me, makes it a medium that is more difficult to show a picture with.
Black and white takes most of the color out of the equation, and levels the playing field of perception to a degree, which gives each photographer and viewer a larger common denominator. I don't know if that's good or not, however.

.

 

[Chazzy]

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.

Amen. Thank you for saying that.

 

[Ric Johnson]

After more then 35 years of living in a darkroom I can print B&W without any problems at all; being partially color blind, if/when I shoot color film I have to have a lab print it which I prefer not too.

 

[stillsilver]

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

 

[wclark5179]

With my people photography, my goal with each photograph made, is to have the viewer first look at the face(s) then move around to take in the rest of the story as told with the print. Sometimes, in color, I've found the colors can interrupt my goal, some will first comment on flowers, the sky, the surroundings or other components of the print before they get to the main part, which, for me, are the people.

Black & White can help the viewer to first see, with each photograph, the main event first, the people, smiles, happy, tears, emotions.

I find people photography beautiful and enjoy every moment of it. We are all different and our moods can vary. Each time is different, fun & challenging. I love people photography! In black & white and usually in color!

 

[zumbido]

I'm not enamored of the common idea that black and white makes a picture more about "shapes" and other things often described as "essential" (contrasted with the implied superfluousness of color). That's an ex post facto justification of the arbitrary absence of one particular element of an image that was really due to entirely technical reasons.

Many, many black and white images are not strongly about "shapes and forms". Many color images are. Broadly speaking contrast (especially at boundaries/lines), not color spectrum is the deciding factor in whether or not a given image has forms (as people are using the term here) as its focus.

I think that removing color is more often than not a crutch so that the photographer has one less element of the light to get right, and because our culture codes black and white as "artistic". Half the work is already done...

Also, because most of us see color all the time it's FAR easier to make a memorable image with strong tonality in black and white--it's inherently "different" and so our human brains (which have evolved to take note of things that are strange, different, out of place) hold on to it even if there isn't anything very noteworthy about its symbolic or representational life, or even its technical competence (or "appropriateness", if you prefer that to "competence").

That said, I think a lot of people do like using black and white for the reasons they state--like "it's more about the essential shapes"--they just fail to realize that this isn't an elemental quality, but just a habitual manner of seeing that they've developed because of some combination of the reasons noted above.

And all that said, I still prefer black and white for a lot of my work because I'm not exempt from any of what I just said. Whether it's because of a lack of time and effort or just some mental block, I haven't yet been able to divorce form from content in color images--it's way too easy still for me to think something is a good image just because my wife or a friend or a building I climbed is in it. I'm still in that boat along with most of us of being able to more easily deal with the expressionistic elements in black&white.

At the end of the day, in the hands of a skilled practitioner, I'm usually drawn more to color photographs than black and white--but I'm not that skilled yet so I prefer making my own photographs with silver.

 

[zumbido]

This is my reasoning also. I can get lost in a bw print.

Mike

Agreed, and for me personally this is very largely dependent on the abstractions of micro-contrast and grain, both of which are "easier" in black and white than color. In a color photo we'd look at it and say, "it looks like a painting, someone's been using too much Photoshop".

 

[PhotoBob]

Wow, I'm impressed with the responses I've gotten here.
Just a reminder it is to share WHY you practice photography in black & white, not to criticise or put anyone down.
Just keep it simple that's all ... please.

 

[wclark5179]

"Just keep it simple that's all ... please."

Yup, that's how I operate!

Great idea!

 

[Worker 11811]

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?

 

[Larry Bullis]

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?

A lot of people took up photography because their first grade teachers told them that "That doesn't look like a horsey!"

I draw, sometimes, too, and in fact, went to art school because I wanted the whole thing, not just the photo part.

It's good for a photographer to draw. There is a tradition going back thousands of years - of monochromatic drawing. On walls, on rocks. On anything.

I agree with you entirely, and I can say that the difference is far less significant than the similarity.

 

[sidearm613]

I use black and white because it forces you to visualize the world in greyscale. I find that challenging, and I like a good challenge. You start looking at things differently. Lines and forms pop up everywhere.

 

[alanrockwood]

I dunno, sometimes I just like to shoot black and white, and sometimes I like to shoot color.

By the way, the following is not a novel observation, but I think it varies from person to person. Some people just seem to shoot better in one medium than the other. For example, I love the look of Ansel Adams' black and white photos. On the other hand, I once saw one of his color photos, and it did not resonate with me. Based on my limited experience just described I think Adams' natural medium was black and white, whereas for some other photographers their natural medium is color.

 

[5stringdeath]

Because I can process/print at home and I've always been a crappy color printer (darkroom anyhow) probably due to partial color blindness. And like others have mentioned, I seem to be able to see the world in grayscale .. knowing what colors will yield what tones of gray, that sort of thing. Real color has always gotten in my way .. or rather, I lack the skill to detach from colors and see images the same way I do in B&W ... and I also really enjoy and find peace in my little darkroom.

 

[Craig Griffiths]

An interesting question that I have been thinking a lot about of late. I started out using 35mm Velvia as my only film back when I started seriously using a camera. I chose this because the landscape images I looked at in books were in colour and many used Velvia. Then I moved up to 4x5 and still used Velvia because thats what I had always used. But after looking at the large format forum and here, decided to try black and white. This was all lab processed because I felt that I could never learn to develop my own film.

Then I had a session with one of the photographers here who reviewed some of my images as part of a workshop and said that the black and white were better images and that I should do more. He also showed me how easy it was to develop black and white film. I thought at that point that he must be right so I concentrated almost solely on black and white, processing the film myself then scanning it in and printing on an inkjet printer.

Then I went to the Queensland Art Gallery and saw some black and white photos printed in the darkroom that showed me what could be done using an enlarger rather than scanning and printing. From there the bathroom was converted, an enlarger purchased and I struggled with the darkroom for a few years. I then purchased an 8x10 and an 8x20 and have used black and white solely for about 3 or 4 years. Cost was never a factor, but what was important to me was that it was me who was producing the final print. Apart from making the film, every other decision was mine.

Just recently I bought the camera I had been lusting after for a long time (GX617) and started using Velvia again, and processing it myself. While it is intensely satisfying to process this myself I have been struggling with using colour again. The subjects I have been shooting in black and white for the last few years are missing something in colour, they dont seem as good to me in colour.

So even though I now do all of my own processing whether E6, C41 or Black and White, I am most comfortable with Black and White. I feel that black and white lets me show my own artistic abilities (as limited as they may be) and allows me to see the subject bette than colour can.

 

[Wade D]

I use B&W just because I like it. Can't get any simpler than that.