The Impact of Black and White

[Doug Howk]

With todays digital capture, imaging software and color printers, doing color is easy. Brooks Jensen in latest issue of Lenswork says that there is a virtual tsunami of exceptional images thanks to the ease of digital. The darkroom is no longer a barrier to creative individuals especially if they want to create color images. I have yet to see an exceptional, desaturated image; but B&W may not for long remain immune to that tsunami. Maybe hand-crafted images will prove an eddy in the coming flood.

[Bill_1856]

I have yet to see an exceptional, desaturated image.

Doug, I don't understand what you're saying. Wouldn't a desaturated image just be a B&W?

[Steve J Murray]

it almost seems like the portraits taken in color are too distracting, taking away from what you're trying to show. With well-exposed black and white film, to me, it seems like there is no mystery about what the subject matter is, nor the story you're trying to tell with the photograph.

Nope, don't agree. After making black and white photographs, both landscapes and portraits, for over 30 years, I find that working in color, especially with the modern DSLR opens up a whole new vista of creativity. I really love the black and white photos I did in the past, but I absolutely have no inclination to wax on philosophically about how much more noble and "true" these images are compared to color. I'm frankly tired of just black and white. Maybe my own perspective comes from having done black and white for so long I am ready to challenge my creative brain some more by working with color. I believe a portrait done in color can be just as impactful as any black and white portrait, if done well. So, no, I don't put any stock in your statement about the superiority of black and white portraits. An artistic person can do just as well with any medium.

I do see a fair number of desaturated "portraits" coming out of portrait studios, attesting to the fact that people seem to like black and white. I've never seen one of these that wasn't a really horrible fake sepia tone, so apparently the general public doesn't really even know what good black and white looks like, but that's another story.

[Jim Galli]

We react to our environment. Doug touched on the tsunami of color images we're all drowning in. We're bombasted with gooey color images all day long from all angles. The reaction to want to get into a quiet place and enjoy an exceptional black and white image is similar to a guy in 1948 marveling over the first good Kodachrome image he's ever seen.

[SAShruby]

Ben,

IMHO BW portrait is playing with light, shadows and highlights. Every color is transformed into certain level of contrast. With color portrait you will lessen contrast property and add color property. Mood and expression of the picture would change. It is the personal prefference of every individual. If you ask photographer what he likes majority would answer BW, if you aks customer I'd say it would be Color. But that is my opinion.

[Bill_1856]

I can't even imagine the Steve McCurdy portrait of the Afgan girl in anything but color.

[j.e.simmons]

Doug, I don't understand what you're saying. Wouldn't a desaturated image just be a B&W?

I see a lot of the same images that Doug sees. I think he is talking about the common, desaturated images that end up printed as weak, low contrast images. They most resemble RC paper prints in the very early days of RC. They don't compare to darkroom produced prints on fiber paper.

That said, I doubt that anyone posting on this forum produces such a poor print. Doug is talking about the stuff generated by the more amateur photographer - the photographers Brooks says are now in competition with the more accomplished photographers.
juan

[paulr]

Exceptional Color is much more difficult to make than B&W. Don't knock it if you can't do it.

Our ideas about excellent color imagery mostly come from painting. Painters are practicing a many thousand year old tradtion and have absolute control over color relationships.

In photography, most of us are less well studied in the use of color, and even if that weren't so, we have so little control of color that there's isn't much that we can do with it.

In black and white we work primarily with tonal relationships, over which the medium allows us almost complete control. Color photography adds the vast element of color, and gives us very little control. So trying to make color photographs, outside of a staged/studio environment, is like trying to keep twice as many balls in the air when you juggle.

It's little wonder that there are so few great bodies of color work. The medium isn't inferior, it's just really hard.

[Marko]

I see a lot of the same images that Doug sees. I think he is talking about the common, desaturated images that end up printed as weak, low contrast images. They most resemble RC paper prints in the very early days of RC. They don't compare to darkroom produced prints on fiber paper.

That said, I doubt that anyone posting on this forum produces such a poor print. Doug is talking about the stuff generated by the more amateur photographer - the photographers Brooks says are now in competition with the more accomplished photographers.
juan

If you make a concerted effort and actually listen to the commercials (and watch them) for just one evening, you will probably notice that about half of them are based on "how ridiculously easy and fun" some gizmo or the other is to use, especially taking, printing or "sharing" phtographs. The other half is all about how cheap the product is.

All those advertized gizmos are, unfortunately, cheap and easy enough to use that the chimps can actually produce a ton of "results" before loosing interest and moving on to the next one.

It's not that meaningful and high quality color or digital b&w cannot be made, it's just that those are drowned in the wasteland that results the mass-consumption pop culture.

[Ben Chase]

With regard to landscapes, I'll continue doing them in color, because that's what I know best. For some reason I'm drawn more to the black and white portrait photograph than I am most color ones.

Of course, there's a better chance of an asteroid striking the earth in the next hour than there is of me being a portrait photographer at all.....It's a subject matter that I know almost nothing about.

I had a feeling there would be a lot of different thoughts on this subject.