Black & White – a natural progression?

[paulr]

I'm staying away from the "what's better" side of the discussion. It's like asking if poems are better than novels. They're different; they do different things in different ways. You'll get a sense of what's better for you after looking at a lot of work or after doing a lot.

The biggest arguement against color in large format is expense. That's merely pragmatic, but it might be a real impediment. I did b+w for most of my photographic life, and when I wanted to experiment with color, I found I couldn't afford it with the big camera. So I borrowed a friend's ancient hasselblad and learned with that.

It WAS a learning experience. Making pictures that work in color is different from making them work in shades of gray. Whichever one you learned on, you'll have to learn a lot of new things to do well at the other.

The only absolute I can think of is that color is easier to print. Analog or digital, it's just easier to get a color print to do what you want than a bw print. In my expereince anyhow. Something about black and white printing ... the subtlest differences can make or break a print.

[rippo]

i shoot both, but i shoot more b/w for economic reasons. if i'm testing, b/w film is cheaper and faster.

that said, it's like discussing the merits of sculpture vs painting. they're different, and involve different dimensions. with color, i find that the end result is often too close to mundane reality, and i must work harder to make the image something special. whereas black and white already removes me a step from reality, making it easier to see something artistic in the image.

at some point, you get to a stage where you can say "this needs to be a color image" or black and white. some people are comfortable picking one side or the other. some need to straddle the fence. some don't know they're a side-picker until they've straddled the fence for awhile.

i also find that i cannot shoot black and white images properly unless there's b/w film in the camera. i've tried to shoot digitally or with color film, knowing i'd convert to b/w later...i can't help myself. if the camera can shoot color, i think 'color'.

[Daniel_Buck]

if I could process color film as easy as I process B&W, I would probably shoot color film as well. However, I do tend to prefer most of my photos (trees, rocks and other landscape details) in B&W. I'm not quite sure why, I just like B&W better for those type of shots. Maybe I subconsciously thing that it "should" be in B&W because that's the way it started, or maybe I actually do enjoy the B&W better, I'm not sure. For cars, I usually like color if it's a newer (shiney) car, if it's a dull/matte or old looking car, I like B&W.

[Brian Vuillemenot]

I only shoot color. We live in a color world; why not incorporate this extra dimension into your photography- it results in a whole lot more possibilities! I've seen many black and white photographs that moved me emotionally, but have never had any desire to produce any myself. Kind of like reading a fine novel or drinking a good beer- it doesn't make me want to start writing or brewing!

I do think that it is important to choose one or the other, and devote your energy to it. Shooting color is a different thought process than shooting black and white, and there are considerable technical differences as well. Ansel produced a volume of color work, and it just doesn't even come close to his black and white masterpieces.

Many of my photographer friends, who shoot mainly black and white, have tried to "convert" me to a black and white shooter, as though I'm somehow below them for shooting color. I think that color is looked down upon, especially among the more elite club of large format shooters. It's probably due to the fact that color is the vehicle for the casual snap shot shooter, and digital cameras shoot in color. Therefore, color is viewed as more ordinary and pedestrian, whereas the true artists use black and white. Without wanting to get into a argument over which is better, I think color gets a bad rap for this reason.

[John Kasaian]

"We live in a color world,,,"---how true! If I were going to shoot color, I'd need to learn a new process, improve my dark room a bit and learn how to print with filters. That in itself would be a "progession" for me in going from b&w to color---the opposite of the original poster's topic!

But I don't have such an urge.

I grew up with B&W television and the family photo albums were B&W back then as well. When color hit the scene in my world I was blown away! How glorious (I could cite Simon & Garfunkle's Kodachrome here!) and when Cibachromes were introduced---it was lust at first sight! "WOW!" was my reaction.
But I couldn't afford Cibachromes then (nor can I afford color 8x10 now) and my color snapshots of long ago shifted into wierd colors. What a bummer! Then I discovered the work of some excellent B&W photographers and my "WOW!" reaction returned, only this time it was in B&W.

Now I shoot just about everything in B&W--even family snaps (my bride is charged with capturing "greens of summer and makes you feel all the world's a sunny day, hay,hey!" With her digi.)

So is there a natural progression from color to b&w or b&w to color? In my experience there is a progression but not one bound by nature.

[CG]

Color or BW? I'd guess the best thing is to get enough experience in both to be fully fluent in the seeing. Seeing in BW is wayyyyy different from seeing in color.

By "seeing" I mean seeing and understanding the way the camera / and post shooting process transform what you "see". It takes a while and a lot of shooting (and probably printing if you are doing BW) BW has and demands a different view of the world, and for me is more difficult. But the difficulty is beside the point. And beside the point I want to make which is that if you are considering what medium to shoot with, you are really choosing, in the end, a way of presenting and interpreting.

That may or may not be some sort of progression. I think of BW vs color as utterly different tools for telling a visual story. It's like wondering whether there is a progression from oil paint to watercolors or vice versa. They just are, and the question is, "which one suits you best".

Best,

C

[leeturner]

I live in a fairly grey part of the UK. The sky is grey, the houses are grey and quite a few of the people are as well. My main photographic activity revolves around recording my environment and b&w conveys both the look of these old industrial towns and in some ways the atmosphere. of these places.

On the other hand I lived in Southern Africa for many years and took very few mono photographs. Both the continent and the people are colourful and this seemed to subliminally affect my film choice.

Cost is also becoming an issue. With colour neg sheet film running at around $50 for 10 sheets the UK is becoming very pricey.

[Dave Jeffery]

Robert Teague wrote

"I find I can convey the things I see and feel about a location much better in color"

I would imagine that might be especially true living in Hawaii.

I don't know of one underwater photographer that shoots black and white. The colors of Hawaii's marine life put the typical colors of the majority of places on land and underwater on and around the continental U.S. to shame IMHO. Imagine shooting Mahi Mahi, Papio, octocorals, silverswords, strawberry papayas, butterflyfish, oweoweo, lobster eggs, nudibranchs etc. in black and white?

Black and white photography as an art form is no doubt superior to color but for a person like myself that has spent years in a colorful environment there will always be a trade off looking at black and white images. I was not nearly as moved by Ansel Adams images as much as I was when I saw the irridescent blues, greens and yellows on the side of a live Mahi Mahi as well as all the detail.

There are a fair number of people that have a certain degree of color blindness that cannot appreciate color as much as others.

I've lived in 15 areas in North America which are not very colorful compared to coral reef life in crystal clear water. That being said I'm sure I would appreciate black and white photography much more if I had not been exposed to so much color for so many years.

Just another opinion and it's great to hear all the different viewpoints.

All the best!

[Dick Hilker]

Thanks, Brian! When you said "that color tells you what something looked like, b&w tells you what something felt like," you crystallized something I'd long felt, but never quite brought into such sharp focus.

Like so many older photographers, I started with B&W, but now use only color film for simplicity since I use relatively little of it as an amateur. That provides the latitude of scanning the negatives and then deciding whether the image is best presented in its B&W or color form. The conversion process is critical, in order to preserve the essential qualities of a B&W image, but it can be done nicely and has occasionally yielded a "twofer."

[uniB]

Thanks for all the great replies and thoughts on my original post, it's made great reading and certainly brings up some interesting points.

What's clear is that location and subject matter play in big part in the road you take. For me BW works well for architecture, abstract work, portrait work and macro. As my work is pretty much only landscape I feel that what I'm trying to portray is lost with BW, I'm moved by the subtle colour of a misty morning or the glorious colour of a sunrise that only I'm witnessing on a particular beach. It's for this reason I have previously shot colour.

I agree that you've got to be particularly good to turn colour into art, it's easy to take a 'picture' of something but much harder to produce something that can be considered artistic. This, of course, is not the case with BW, it's very nature means that it's an abstract view of the subject, people are also conditioned to BW as 'art' – particularly in an age where everyone and their dog have got a reasonable digital camera which can take reasonable colour 'pictures'

I guess I'll keep shooting both and see where it takes me, just got my first BW film back from the lab, so I'm about to scan them and see how it suits me!