Developing an Eye for Both Color and B&W?

[Ed Richards]

I shot only color for years, and do like it in books and on the screen. I am even pretty good at it. I realized when I got back to 4x5, however, that I do not like color prints on my walls, and that I could not do fine art prints for other people if I did not like them myself. Ask yourself the same question - if you do not hang color, maybe you should not worry about shooting color.

Bruce is very right about the methods. About the only time I would do color and black and white the same way would be wide angle extreme contrast cityscapes. Kodachrome skys and bricks and steel with a 17mm lens you can do the same as black and white.

[Oren Grad]

In practical terms, B&W photographers learn to look for scenes that exhibit strong contrast. Light and shadow are their only tools, so they look for light and shadow. It's not surprising to see B&W photographers working in bright sun; they want the contrast.

I disagree with this as a generalization. That's one way of working in B&W, but it's not the only one.

IMO, bright sun is very difficult to work with, anything but ideal for making B&W pictures.

I'm quickly bored by pictures that depend on dramatic tonal contrast for their visual impact. I'm much more interested in quiet, low-key pictures that may seem flat and featureless at first, but that seem to gain in depth and richness as one lives with them over time.

Clearly, YMMV.

Yup.

[paulr]

I'm not one for subtleties: for me, color is part of the subject or no

um ... you mean sometimes you go places that are monochromatic?

based on all the existing work out there, including strong b+w work made from colorful subjects, and nearly monochrome work made with color materials (one of many examples: http://www.urbanlandscape.org.uk/bflowers/mega.htm )
it seems to be a matter of great subtlety.

and i agree with Oren that scenes of strong tonal contrast are not the great draw for black and white materials (although every photo student inevitably goes through a super high contrast phase). seems to me that subtle tonal relationships are where the pay dirt is in the greatest black and white work.

likewise subtle color relationships might be what sets great color work apart from the rest. just as in painting.

[Oren Grad]

seems to me that subtle tonal relationships are where the pay dirt is in the greatest black and white work.

likewise subtle color relationships might be what sets great color work apart from the rest. just as in painting.

I agree. In this respect I don't think color is different from B&W, though I think it's more difficult to pull it off in color.

[paulr]

I agree. In this respect I don't think color is different from B&W, though I think it's more difficult to pull it off in color.

certainly in color photography (at least photography done outside of a controlled studio environment). a painter can always add a little more red here, a little more gray there ... but photgraphers out in the world are always dealt a hand of cards that they have to work with.

this might be why there's comparatively little truly great use of color in the medium, even though color film has been around for over 70 years now.

[CXC]

You guys are just too refined for me. I like high contrast B&Ws and garish colors. Maybe in another decade or two I'll learn to love those infinite grey variations, and all those wonderful sepias and beiges and taupes and sienas and umbers...

[Keith S. Walklet]

I think there is an advantage to having worked in b+w, to understand the tonal relationships that are the foundation of an image. That is not to say that all master b+w photographers are equally adept at color work. Ansel's color work, for instance, was technically quite good, but not as memorable as his b+w.

One contemporary photographer who does get it, is Charles Cramer (www.charlescramer.com). While most of his more recent work is color, even in his early b+w, there is a consistent awareness of the underlying structure of the image, and an appreciation of subtlety of tone.

His color work takes that foundation and adds the knowledge of where to look for color in his surroundings, a remarkable color acuity and the ability to render all of its nuance.

[Eric Leppanen]

I come from the opposite direction: I've shot color throughout my photographic lifetime, and have undertaken B&W only in the last five years.

When I began shooting B&W, my mentors and influences envisioned B&W as a dramatically different art form than color, and emphasized subtle, elegant tonal transitions and retention of shadow detail. So far, I have practiced B&W photography in this mode (unlike my more Velvia-esque color work which frequently emphasizes visual fireworks). Thus my B&W and color styles are quite different and usually so are the subjects. But as with all lifelong learning curves, I am working on more subtle, even ethereal color compositions while trying out more dramatic B&W explorations of shape and form. Perhaps over time the two working styles may converge somewhat. Live and learn.

For color I usually go for strong color separations and as much contrast as the scene can take (short of completely blacking out the shadow areas), and therefore I select the most contrasty, color saturated film feasible. Velvia 100 and E100VS have similar contrast and saturation levels, and I choose between them to get the color palette I want or the reciprocity characteristics I need (being primarily an 8x10 shooter I don't worry about grain). If the scene contrast is too high, I'll fall back to Provia or even Pro 160S (the new Portra films also look interesting), which handle high contrast scenes better but lack the dramatic color transitions of the more saturated films. Frankly, I prefer when possible to return to a scene under better lighting conditions, rather than settle for shooting under high contrast light with a low contrast film, as one can often record better detail and texture that way.

The argument has been made that, if one scans and digitally prints, that a low contrast film should be used under all circumstances, and contrast and saturation added in Photoshop. Many folks seem to have workflows that do this quite successfully, but so far I have resisted learning Photoshop (I worked in the computer industry for 20 years and am very tired of the beasts), and the digital labs I am familiar with (WCI and Calypso) both strongly believe that chrome film (WCI prefers Provia as a happy compromise between saturation/contrast and shadow detail) yields better digital prints for landscape work. So I tend to shoot early in the morning and late in the afternoon, enabling me to use high saturation color film, or to obtain better shadow and texture renditions when shooting B&W.

[Lucas M]

I haven't been doing photography very long but I find it that while I am good with colour, I have a harder time taking good photos in black and white. I see more the different hues in a picture better than the different values. I am finding that the more you work in one medium, the more you see the world in a certain way and the more you start noticing subtleties better. You just need to practice it.

[Paul Coppin]

I don't do B&W well, as I shoot and react to colour mostly. My eye gets lost in the hues and shades of colour. I don't see tonal relationships because of this; I have to work to pull them out.

I react to strong graphical elements in B&W, although tonal scale will get my attention. Years ago I spent a lot of time trying for smooth grays in B&W in large prints from 35mm. I achieved what I went after but found that the result did nothing for me.

The biggest thing I see with B&W photogs doing colour is that they tend to see the hues as tones, and photograph accordingly - the end result is a picture that is frequently "visually challenged" because of the discordant relationships between hues (especially if the hues are pointilistic, like fall leaves can be). These shots are often good B&W shots because of the tone relationships of the hues, but the colour dimension was overlooked when it was composed.