B&W vs Colour - Dreaming - Seeing - Younger or Older than 55

[Steve Gledhill]

This link http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/10/17/scidream117.xml is to a newspaper article about how older people (from the black and white TV generation) are far more likely to dream in black and white than younger folks (whose TV viewing has practically all been in colour) who are colour dreamers. Whilst this is interesting in itself, it prompted a related and more interesting question for me about b&w vs colour ... are those of us who are black and white photographers much more likely to be at least 55 or older – i.e. our formative childhood years were before the era of colour television? Amongst my own photography friends, this isn’t totally true – but there is a strong inclination in that direction.

In 1965 when I was sixteen I made my first ever trip abroad from the UK. I was lucky enough to go with my school on a visit across Europe to Russia. I can still remember vividly the shock I had when I woke up early in the morning in Moscow after travelling on the sleeper train to find that the whole place was in colour. Up to then, all I had ever seen of places abroad were TV pictures and newspaper pictures in monochrome, so to find it actually looked like it did at home (speaking here just about colour rather than anything else you understand!) was a shock. I relate this to illustrate how possibly seeing TV, cinema and newspapers images almost exclusively in black and white may well have conditioned the way I see and influenced my preference for monochrome image making?

[Steve Wadlington]

I have discussions with my teenage son about my BW imagery. He can't see it! It looks funny to him, and he won't watch an old BW movie. His brain is wired to color and the Nintendo era. To him that is how things should look, Vibrant color!

[Bruce Watson]

This link http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/10/17/scidream117.xml is to a newspaper article about how older people (from the black and white TV generation) are far more likely to dream in black and white than younger folks (whose TV viewing has practically all been in colour) who are colour dreamers.

That's just silly. What, did people from the era dominated by radio dream in audio without visuals? Did people from the era of Shakespeare dream in iambic pentameter? Please. People were dreaming, mostly in B&W and sometimes in color, long before the advent of TV.

[Steve Gledhill]

That's just silly. What, did people from the era dominated by radio dream in audio without visuals? Did people from the era of Shakespeare dream in iambic pentameter? Please. People were dreaming, mostly in B&W and sometimes in color, long before the advent of TV.

As I commented, I wasn't so much interested in the article about dreaming - it does seem a bit tentative - but the thought that it prompted about whether it is us older folks who throughout our formative years were exposed daily to monochrome images who are predominantly the ones 'do' and 'get' monochrome photography.

I do like your thought of dreaming in iambic pentameters.

[Ralph Barker]

Having grown up when there was only firmament (no light yet), I dream in black only. ;)

[Marko]

As I commented, I wasn't so much interested in the article about dreaming - it does seem a bit tentative - but the thought that it prompted about whether it is us older folks who throughout our formative years were exposed daily to monochrome images who are predominantly the ones 'do' and 'get' monochrome photography.

Well, then, how come that most photography from the 50 or so years before the invention of TV was done in B&W despite the fact that all the paintings were done in color?

:)

[Bill_1856]

Having grown up when there was only firmament (no light yet), I dream in black only. ;)

Good one, Ralph! LOL.;)

[Eric Rose]

Marko I think that quite a bit of color was done but it was a very tedious process. The masters that we are familiar with, that is to say North American ones, primarily used B&W because, I believe, it was cheaper, more immediate (relatively speaking) and was thought to be more expressive.

Also a lot of photography was done with 35mm and box cameras back then and to do autochromes with anything but static objects was pretty well impossible.

Now on to the dreaming stuff. I almost always dream in color, but maybe a total lack of maturity has saved me from descending into the world of monochrome.

Just my thoughts

[Marko]

Hey Eric, that's why I said most, but that was not the point I was trying to make anyway.

Besides, there are some of us who do not watch television (almost) at all... ;)

[al olson]

The reason that there was not much color photography 50 years ago is that materials were limited and very expensive. Color negative films were costly to purchase, expensive to process, and the prints were unstable. They would fade before your eyes.

There was Kodachrome that had excellent color and stability and it was not too expensive. However you could look at your transparencies with a viewer, examine them on a light table, or project them. You could also have prints made but again this was expensive and stability was a big question. And, of course, transparencies were commonly used for publication. But this was not the realm of most photographers.

On the other hand, b&w could be processed less expensively in the photographer's darkroom. Until the early 50s, when more people were able to afford and equip their darkroom with enlargers, most of the printing was by contact and even the box camera sizes were 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 or 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 to get viewable prints from your local drug store. Four by five was the standard size for press work and it was usually contact printed. Studio work was typically 8x10.

It was not until the mid-70s that color negative film, chemicals, and paper became more affordable and more stable. That is when I first established my color darkroom ... with a color enlarger! Looking back at my prints from those days, however, they are more grainy and contrasty than the results I am getting from current films.

With the advent of digital it has become possible to scan transparencies and produce inkjet prints. This overcame the issue of the costs for having a lab make the print and it made transparency film more practical.

Having been born in the Dust Bowl years my early memories were mainly b&w. Cars were black, vegetation was sparse (even weeds didn't grow well) so that soils were exposed, houses had dingy white siding because it had not been painted for years. You get the idea.

After working in b&w through the early 60s I switched to transparency films for the family photos. I welcomed color and used it for years. Now in the past two or three years my emphasis is again on b&w and I have hardly touched my 35mm cameras. B&w emphasizes the effects of lighting and texture without the distraction of color and in many cases it provides a drama to the image that color could never achieve.

[Brian Vuillemenot]

In 1965 when I was sixteen I made my first ever trip abroad from the UK. I was lucky enough to go with my school on a visit across Europe to Russia. I can still remember vividly the shock I had when I woke up early in the morning in Moscow after travelling on the sleeper train to find that the whole place was in colour. Up to then, all I had ever seen of places abroad were TV pictures and newspaper pictures in monochrome, so to find it actually looked like it did at home (speaking here just about colour rather than anything else you understand!) was a shock. I relate this to illustrate how possibly seeing TV, cinema and newspapers images almost exclusively in black and white may well have conditioned the way I see and influenced my preference for monochrome image making?

Well, there was no color before 1965. That's when the world magically turned color! (At least that's what I like to tell little kids, and they always believe it).

[Diane Maher]

My husband, who is older than 55 doesn't get why I shoot b/w. In the context of this discussion, I fall into the younger than 55 crowd.

[Scott Davis]

I'm in the same boat as Diane - under 55, but shoot primarily b/w. In my earliest years, we only had a b/w tv in the house, but we had color tv by the time I was 7 or 8. I don't THINK that my b/w tv watching had any influence on my photography, but as I'm not a child psychologist, what would I know? I like both b/w and color movies.