Page 9 of 11 FirstFirst ... 7891011 LastLast
Results 81 to 90 of 109

Thread: Why do you shoot Black and White over Color?

  1. #81

    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Posts
    96

    Re: Why do you shoot Black and White over Color?

    Quote Originally Posted by adam satushek View Post
    Moopheus:

    This is a fascinating perspective! Thanks for contributing! It really makes me wonder whether the colors I see are different than what other see. I see this as a very good argument for B&W being a more universal medium. Fascinating!
    I live every day with the notion that "color" is a creation of the mind, an interpretation of sensory signals, and not actual reality. (Though generally a reasonably close interpretation; if it were not, we'd have a hard time moving around in the world!). The interesting thing is that the colors I see are different, but different in a measurable and consistent way. But this includes, really, "black" and "white" as well. And remember that b&w prints are rarely perfectly neutral monochrome. When you talk about "warm" or "cold" tone, or toning, or many other types of manipulation, you are talking about the use of color. A completely neutral gray print would look even duller than printers' ink. It may be that this is color you are adding to your photo, rather than color used to represent what was seen, but still. You can't completely get away from color. B&W is not more "universal" in that sense. Technically, for me, it is easier to work with. That's all. I've seen many photos I've liked and thought were good in color, and many in b&w; the empirical evidence suggests that arguing over which has more artistic value is pretentious blah-blah of no value.

  2. #82
    ic-racer's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Posts
    6,729

    Re: Why do you shoot Black and White over Color?

    1) Contrast control is easy with B&W while it is near-impossible with color.
    2) B&W can be easily processed in a home darkroom.
    3) There has never been a 'standard' color process. Various methods have come and gone. Currently spraying dyes is popular. However, the B&W process of using silver to block light has been the standard since the first photographs. The ability of silver to block light and make images can be imitated but I don't see it ever being replaced.

  3. #83

    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Location
    Seattle
    Posts
    3

    Re: Why do you shoot Black and White over Color?

    Lately I have been shooting a lot of color film. Reading through this thread I think I have a much better understanding of the possibilities of B&W photography as well as its implications. B&W photography has huge creative potential and now I feel more capable of harnessing all of its power when I do choose to use it.

    Sometimes color can detract from a piece and I can see how in this case we are better off using B&W for sure.

    I think it is really cool when you see a photograph and know who took it just by the aesthetics (and I'm not talking about processes). That is the kind of style I want. Shooting color and b&w it would be very challenging to hone a style since they are two very different mediums. Both are great, but it feels like I would be better off choosing just one or the other or keeping them as two separate bodies of work.

  4. #84
    K. Praslowicz's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2004
    Location
    Duluth, MN
    Posts
    193

    Re: Why do you shoot Black and White over Color?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jay DeFehr View Post
    And yet, you've not bothered to share your reasons for choosing color over B&W.
    Here is mine.

    Mostly, I feel that the photos I make, how they will serve 100, 200 years from how as part of the historical record is just as important as all the artness I try to cram into them. I don't see a need to strip out that layer of information. Just look how bonkers the web goes anytime color photos from before 1940 turn up. Doesn't even matter if the photos are good.

    The thing now though is that since color is the standard in photography, and there is tons of photos out there where no attention is paid to the role that the colors play in the composition, we've grown kind of jaded to it. The "like working 15 hours a day" point made earlier. So now I sort of see using color in a way that can catch the eye of people accustomed to seeing it all the time in photos as another level of challenge in making a good photograph.

    I've just sort of reached a point where black & white photos often just looks incomplete to me. Like eating pancakes without syrup or something.

  5. #85

    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Medicine Hat Alberta
    Posts
    331

    Re: Why do you shoot Black and White over Color?

    I never really did photography prior to taking a course in college where we shot B&W and learnt developing and printing. The very first image coming up in the developer was magic and the ones that appeared on paper yesterday are still magic. That is part of the appeal; seeing a negative whose positive you could only imagine to actually come into existence. I see many subjects as black and white ones that would have no appeal to me in colour.

    I shoot colour cause I like the interaction a colour has with other colours and some subjects I just think need or "deserve" colour. I never shot much colour in 4X5 and now that there is no local processing and I do have a Nikon scanner for MF and shoot digital as well but do not have a scanner for LF negs my colour is MF or smaller.

    In printmaking the artist almost always specifies the medium and/or the method such as Lithography or Serigraph and I am more likely to follow this traditional, especially as my wife is a printmaker, than another art although I believe painters as state if it is an oil or acrilic and perhaps watercolour although that one is hard to mistake for the others. I do not shoot monochrome because I think it is more of an art, I shoot and print because I enjoy doing so.

    I think I understand why some one might only shoot one or the other but for me I shoot B&W because I see images I would like to make a B&W print of and shoot colour when I see some thing I would like to either have a colour print or to have the image if I ever want to do something else with it. Not being able to do both to me would be a lose.

  6. #86

    Join Date
    Jun 2002
    Posts
    9,487

    Re: Why do you shoot Black and White over Color?

    I didn't read all the discussion, I'm sure it was enlightening as always ;-p

    I shoot mostly color and will convert to B&W if the subject lends itself. I find that working from color gives me a lot more options in how to create the B&W. Obviously I am a proponent of scanning, cropping, and gross manipulation - I love silver prints too but when it comes down to it, I prefer having control over absolute print quality (in an ideal world I'd pony up and have Elevator in Toronto make me some of their wonderful silver prints from digital files - they are the bomb!)

    Nowadays I mix color and B&W, as well as large and small formats. It feels more modern and of this time period that we can do that - years ago it felt like a no-no but maybe things are looser. At least I am.

  7. #87

    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Posts
    3,142

    Re: Why do you shoot Black and White over Color?

    Along with the archival properties of B&W, there is this.

    With monochrome you have form, texture, and light to work with. A "mundane" object or scene can become something else by working with these three ingredients, you can also concentrate on any one of the three and create something unique.
    One man's Mede is another man's Persian.

  8. #88

    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Posts
    1,176

    Re: Why do you shoot Black and White over Color?

    Quote Originally Posted by Frank Petronio View Post
    Nowadays I mix color and B&W, as well as large and small formats. It feels more modern and of this time period that we can do that - years ago it felt like a no-no but maybe things are looser. At least I am.
    I would go so far as to say that is one of the things that defines this era in photography. In X years, film will be mostly gone. I know people here don't want to admit it, and there definitely will be some forms of film photography going on, but the world will have moved on, and with it the truly innovative artists of tomorrow will have little interest in only recreating the past. So, being ambivalent about which medium is the one to use for your expression in this day and age is completely what we should be doing. I think once historians sort through the billions of attempts at photography as it has been democratized by the digital age, this period will be one of the richest yet that the medium has had to offer. It is hard to see now because the signal to noise ratio is so high.

  9. #89
    http://www.spiritsofsilver.com tgtaylor's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Posts
    4,725

    Re: Why do you shoot Black and White over Color?

    Quote Originally Posted by John NYC View Post
    I know people here don't want to admit it, and there definitely will be some forms of film photography going on, but the world will have moved on, and with it the truly innovative artists of tomorrow will have little interest in only recreating the past.
    But that's not the case with many of today’s “innovative artists” who have “rediscovered” the “alternative” methods of the past and are creating a unique art that is heads and shoulders above the typical and mundane digital output of today. This is analogous to the "rediscovery” of Ragtime piano music in the 1970's brought about by the movie The Sting and the similar “rediscovery” of New Orleans jazz in the late 1940's by the Turk Murphy Band in San Francisco. True classics never really die. Like the proverbial diamond in the ruff, they lay hidden only to be "rediscovered."

    Thomas

  10. #90

    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    San Joaquin Valley, California
    Posts
    9,597

    Re: Why do you shoot Black and White over Color?

    Turk Murphy? I remember listening to them bck in the 70's! Good times
    "I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White

Similar Threads

  1. The New Color: The Return of Black-and-White
    By tim atherton in forum On Photography
    Replies: 113
    Last Post: 26-Oct-2011, 09:16
  2. Black and White - BW film or Color??
    By Hugh Sakols in forum Style & Technique
    Replies: 10
    Last Post: 21-Jun-2005, 20:44
  3. Black and White guy wants to shoot Color
    By paulr in forum Darkroom: Film, Processing & Printing
    Replies: 13
    Last Post: 26-Aug-2004, 09:06
  4. Can Color Densitometers Also Do Black and White?
    By octagon in forum Style & Technique
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 12-May-2002, 14:16

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •