or not?

[Kirk Gittings]

What do you think of this statement of mine-describing why I prefer B&W photography for my personal work:


Color is too close to normal perception-b&w is inherently an abstraction and therefore intrinsically more profound.

[ROL]

Frankly, it strikes me as pretentious (profound?!?), as most artist's statements do. But if that's truly what you feel, then why ask for criticism. Sorry, I cannot give you positive criticism, as it would really be close to my own reasons, but profound is not really a description I would think one could legitimately ascribe to one's own work.

[IanG]

It's very similar to a quote I've seen somewhere before that Colour is too close to reality, I think it went on that B&W was more artistic, now I need to think where I saw it.

Those are my sentiments as well, except artist rather than professional.

Ian

[E. von Hoegh]

I like B&W because you have only light, texture, and form to work with. It's too easy to dazzle folks with colors. I don't think of B&W as inherently abstract, stripping away the colors can give a very effective, very real, yet unfamiliar presentation of a scene.

I'm not an artist, and do not photograph professionally, so I can't really say anything from those perspectives.

[Leigh]

That's what we always taught the students.

B&W is a fantasy medium.
As soon as someone sees a b&w image, he knows that reality was left at the door and he entered a different world.

It's the same thing that happens when one sense is impaired, like hearing or smell; the other senses become more acute.

- Leigh

[RW Hawkins]

Kirk,
I wrote about this on my blog awhile back Why Black and White? (http://blog.rwhawkins.com/why-black-white/)
My observation has been many photographers think this type of statement is pretentious, but then they often think that of any words talking about photography. I have found other artists, and even the "regular folks" I talk with are genuinely interested in my choice of only black and white, so I am trying to write more about photography rather than just putting up pictures and saying that's all I have to say. So write away, everything you say won't be profound to everyone, but some of it will be to someone.

[Oren Grad]

...intrinsically more profound

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that. But at least one of the dictionary definitions - "penetrating beyond what is superficial or obvious" is arguably applicable here, in the sense that removing the distraction of color makes it easier to pay attention to other things. What I don't agree with is any implication that B&W is therefore necessarily more meaningful or more important.

For context, I'll add that in my own photography I've never been able to figure out what to do with color, though not for lack of trying. I find it strange and distracting and never quite right, and I'm much more comfortable working in B&W. But I don't think my pictures are especially deep in any philosophical sense just because I happen to prefer B&W.

[Mark Barendt]

Too technical and too complicated for my taste.

Maybe ask a question instead. "How else would I be able to focus on the subject instead of the colors?"

[E. von Hoegh]

Too technical and too complicated for my taste.

Maybe ask a question instead. "How else would I be able to focus on the subject instead of the colors?"

I like that!

[rich815]

Personally I groan when I read 99% of artist's statements. Just let your work speak for you.

[sanking]

What do you think of this statement of mine-describing why I prefer B&W photography for my personal work:

I believe that most monochrome photography does present an inherently greater abstraction of reality than most color photography. But even if you accept this as fact, does that make B&W more profound? I would say not, it merely establishes greater distancing between the photograph as object and the object itself in nature, and in doing so makes us concentrate on the more essential and generic qualities of the object rather than its specific attributes, and on its tonal values and the qualities of light.



Sandy

[Doremus Scudder]

Color is too close to normal perception-b&w is inherently an abstraction and therefore intrinsically more profound.

Kirk,

Unlike others, I don't mind artists' statements at all, in fact, I enjoy them if they are honest and unpretentious. Now trying to pull the wool over others' eyes or just make people think you are important is another thing altogether, but if one is attempting to express what informs one's approach and vision, I think they can be really helpful.

As to your quote: You set up "normal perception" as the opposite of "abstraction," and then state that abstraction is intrinsically more profound. If you really think that abstraction in and of itself shows more intellectual penetration or emotional depth than "normal perception," or that black-and-white photography is inherently more profound than color, then you've said exactly what you wish.

I'm not 100% sure that is what you want to express, or if you really want to predicate "profundity" as an essential characteristic of abstraction.

I assume that the reason you posted the query was that you were not completely satisfied with the statement and wanted some input to help clarify and maybe refine it. I hope this helps a bit in that department.

Best,

Doremus

[Kirk Gittings]

Guys. Sorry I wasn't clear. I'm not looking for affirmation-looking for discusion. I'm not looking to simply my thoughts for the masses but deepen my own understanding.

For me personally the original statement is absolutely true for my personal work. But I started in the early 60s when color photography was not really accepted as an art medium (I'm not talking about "scenic art").


I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that. But at least one of the dictionary definitions - "penetrating beyond what is superficial or obvious" is arguably applicable here, in the sense that removing the distraction of color makes it easier to pay attention to other things. What I don't agree with is any implication that B&W is therefore necessarily more meaningful or more important.

For context, I'll add that in my own photography I've never been able to figure out what to do with color, though not for lack of trying. I find it strange and distracting and never quite right, and I'm much more comfortable working in B&W. But I don't think my pictures are especially deep in any philosophical sense just because I happen to prefer B&W Oren Grad

Oren, I make my living every day with color photography and like you, when I contemplate making a personal image in color, the color is always "strange and distracting and never quite right". I remember one of my first shows (maybe 1979 or 80) up in Canada was a collection of my Chaco images in B&W. I gave a talk to a local camera club and the most common question was why didn't I shoot Chaco in color-that I lost so much with b&w. I didn't know how to answer that then and don't always feel satisfied with my answers now in similar situations. I like the highlighted definition you quoted. That gets to the heart of the matter for me.

[Ken Lee]

"I'm not looking to simply my thoughts for the masses but deepen my own understanding."

I like Black and White Large Format images because we can combine depth of feeling with breadth of facts.

[Kirk Gittings]

"I'm not looking to simply my thoughts for the masses but deepen my own understanding."

I like Black and White Large Format images because we can combine depth of feeling with breadth of facts.



I absolutely feel the validity of this statement, but how would you defend it in a crowd of serious color photographers? :)

[Lenny Eiger]

Kirk,

I often get asked why I don't work in color.

I ask people whether they like the book or the movie. B&W is the book, color is the movie... I find the imagination is much richer while reading, with a few exceptions for movies that have been truly exceptional. Movies are generally a passive "taking in" of information and story where a book engages you.

My favorite portrait is very intimate. The subject sat still for 90 seconds, we breathed together and she gave me everything of herself. It was a beautiful moment we shared. I tell people that if she had a exquisite green shirt on that we would be looking at color. I would end up talking about color vs talking about intimacy. I much prefer talking about the bigger words like intimacy, integrity, presence, etc.

Lenny

[Kirk Gittings]

Kirk,

Unlike others, I don't mind artists' statements at all, in fact, I enjoy them if they are honest and unpretentious. Now trying to pull the wool over others' eyes or just make people think you are important is another thing altogether, but if one is attempting to express what informs one's approach and vision, I think they can be really helpful.

As to your quote: You set up "normal perception" as the opposite of "abstraction," and then state that abstraction is intrinsically more profound. If you really think that abstraction in and of itself shows more intellectual penetration or emotional depth than "normal perception," or that black-and-white photography is inherently more profound than color, then you've said exactly what you wish.

I'm not 100% sure that is what you want to express, or if you really want to predicate "profundity" as an essential characteristic of abstraction.

I assume that the reason you posted the query was that you were not completely satisfied with the statement and wanted some input to help clarify and maybe refine it. I hope this helps a bit in that department.

Best,

Doremus

Absolutely. It is totally what I think about my own work and as I am often giving talks about my work I would like to understand it better.

[Jac@stafford.net]

What do you think of this statement of mine-describing why I prefer B&W photography for my personal work:


Color is too close to normal perception-b&w is inherently an abstraction and therefore intrinsically more profound.

Just a few early Saturday comments here.

Your statement could be true if color were profound, but generally it is not. I would drop 'more profound' because it begs the question of profundity in all regards from subject to the photograph as the object itself, so we have, ""Color is close to normal perception; b&w is an abstraction."

To offer myself as a fair target for the pedantic, I will state that "Black & white photography is usually color without hue." (where 'usually' is intended to obviate near-color-blind and some narrow band B&W films.) So what distinguishes B&W are qualities of light evinced in reflection, shadow, tones of each, and texture.

B&W is one of the limits we impose upon our work. Limits are important because they narrow the scope of attention (and critique).

Recently i read a surprising comment from a well-informed photographer who stated that B&W is a cheap-shot aesthetic and color photography is much more difficult. (I would agree in some cases such as Pete Turner's work.)

Maybe you can take my word-salad, blend it and re-mix it. :)

[Kirk Gittings]

Recently i read a surprising comment from a well-informed photographer who stated that B&W is a cheap-shot aesthetic and color photography is much more difficult. (I would agree in some cases such as Pete Turner's work.)

That's just some ahole trying to get a rise out of people by making a blanket pronouncement. He is trolling (though I think there is some merit in his idea). I guess there is a hint of that in my statement too but I am always absolutely clear that I am talking about my own motivations. I admire people who can make "penetrating beyond what is superficial or obvious" images in color. I don't feel like I can and wonder if it is actually a weekness......

[Kirk Gittings]

Kirk,

I often get asked why I don't work in color.

I ask people whether they like the book or the movie. B&W is the book, color is the movie... I find the imagination is much richer while reading, with a few exceptions for movies that have been truly exceptional. Movies are generally a passive "taking in" of information and story where a book engages you.

My favorite portrait is very intimate. The subject sat still for 90 seconds, we breathed together and she gave me everything of herself. It was a beautiful moment we shared. I tell people that if she had a exquisite green shirt on that we would be looking at color. I would end up talking about color vs talking about intimacy. I much prefer talking about the bigger words like intimacy, integrity, presence, etc.

Lenny

I like that Lenny.

[Tin Can]

I use the Bing daily image as my PC desktop image. Every morning I am confronted by a different, amazing, extremely vivid color image. They are interesting, but so unreal and compared to the abstactivenesss of B&W they exceed the Zeitgeist. Most I doubt could be printed well, and are best viewed only a very good monitor.

That brings up monitors and state of the art TV's. 4K is here, not common, but it will be. Then 8k and so on, ad nauseum.

Quality B&W prints will be become rarer, and perhaps more desirable in the coming decades.

[Mark Barendt]

Why do you even reference color?

I'm not trying to suggest exact words here just trying to help you reflect and clarify what it seems you want to say. Part of that is trying to eliminate the "technical argument". Your original statement asserts an absolute "that abstractions are always more profound". Absolutes beg for rebuttals, you are throwing down a gauntlet.


B&W is inherently an abstraction and I find that that abstraction makes my photos intrinsically more profound.

[Merg Ross]

I'll take the easy road, and quote a photographer who worked in both color and black & white:

" The prejudice many photographers have against color photography comes from not thinking of color as form. You can say things with color that can't be said in black-and-white. But those who say that color will eventually replace black-and-white are talking nonsense. The two do not compete with each other. They are different means to different ends".

I know, Kirk, this is not an answer to your question, but I couldn't resist!

Oh, the quote. EW, 1953

[Oren Grad]

Kirk, thinking about it a bit more, I'll pick on another aspect of your initial statement. I actually don't think B&W photography is any more or less an abstraction than color is - all photographs are quite a ways removed from that which was photographed. But on an intuitive level, B&W pictures feel more real to me, more like a window on to the world. Again, I don't mean that as a piece of mystical philosophizing or a statement of artistic merit, just a description of my subjective reaction to photographs. I think it relates to what I mentioned before, about how removing the distraction of color makes it easier to pay attention to certain other attributes.

In making and looking at color pictures, I sometimes wonder whether my reaction is at all related to the "uncanny valley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley)" phenomenon. But that raises tricky questions of just what makes something "realistic", and I haven't been able to sort that out yet.

[Ken Lee]

I absolutely feel the validity of this statement, but how would you defend it in a crowd of serious color photographers? :)

I'd say that color photographers work in a slightly more realistic medium, so it's slightly harder for them. Not impossible, just harder.

When trying to work in color I have been invariably forced to compensate by increasing the sense of abstraction through other means - in order to reach balance - by for example making the design very simple, or the perspective very flat, or the color pallet very restricted, or the sense of detail very low. See here (http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/forum/Daisy.jpg) or here (http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/forum/Bathers.jpg).

As an image gets too realistic, it becomes easier for the viewer to look through the photograph, at the subject. When it gets too abstract, the danger is that the viewer sees only the photograph. With Fine Art photography, we want to meet the viewer half-way, not at either extreme.

[Kirk Gittings]

Ken, I think that last statement is better expressed as I rather than WE as there is no consensus as to what is Fine Art Photography and images at both extremes are commonly sold in galleries and hung in museums as Fine Art Photography. IE from the most straight forward Alec Soth to the most abstract Aaron Siskind, Minor White or Brett Weston.

[Ken Lee]

You're right - Excellent :cool:

[Kirk Gittings]

Kirk, thinking about it a bit more, I'll pick on another aspect of your initial statement. I actually don't think B&W photography is any more or less an abstraction than color is - all photographs are quite a ways removed from that which was photographed. But on an intuitive level, B&W pictures feel more real to me, more like a window on to the world. Again, I don't mean that as a piece of mystical philosophizing or a statement of artistic merit, just a description of my subjective reaction to photographs. I think it relates to what I mentioned before, about how removing the distraction of color makes it easier to pay attention to certain other attributes.

In making and looking at color pictures, I sometimes wonder whether my reaction is at all related to the "uncanny valley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley)" phenomenon. But that raises tricky questions of just what makes something "realistic", and I haven't been able to sort that out yet.

Oren I don't know how old you are, But I would suggest that people who grew up in the time when newspaper photographs were all B&W (like me) would see B&W as more real? Going to UNM in the late 60's when I was 18-19 stripped that idea from me real quick. Newhall and Coke loved to show how plastic a media photography is. But that is not a common experience for people my age (62).

[Jac@stafford.net]

i would suggest that people who grew up in the time when newspaper photographs were all B&W (like me) would see B&W as more real?.

Speaking only for myself, B&W was my only reality because during my career it was almost all that newspapers printed. Heck, i did not have a color TV until I was in my thirties. Nonetheless, I tried to make the very most of its particular nature.

So B&W was always abstractive (to invent a usage).

However I think most viewers, not photographers, saw B&W as a casual normal, not abstract. Today, thanks to digital's liberation of color, the normal is color and B&W is more likely abstract.

[Tin Can]

Your abstractive is better usage than my abstractivenesss, where I used too many s'.


Speaking only for myself, B&W was my only reality because during my career it was almost all that newspapers printed. Heck, i did not have a color TV until I was in my thirties. Nonetheless, I tried to make the very most of its particular nature. When doing magazine work on color I admit all I really worried about was getting the color right, balanced.

So B&W was always abstractive (to invent a usage).

[Heroique]

Drug users (I mean the likes of William James, Aldous Huxley, John Lennon, etc.) acclaim color as profound, worthy of more attention and more real than masses, positions, dimensions.

To be sure, I can’t think of anyone who walks through the doors of perception, drugs or not, and returns to sing the praises of 10 black and white zones.

“Cellophane flowers of yellow and green...”

[Greg Miller]

What do you think of this statement of mine-describing why I prefer B&W photography for my personal work:

Following that logic, a well executed color abstraction would be even more profound because of its closeness to reality but still being abstract.

[Kirk Gittings]

Following that logic, a well executed color abstraction would be even more profound because of its closeness to reality but still being abstract.

Show me an example?

[Struan Gray]

Kirk, to me, your statement on its own comes across as a camera club cliché. Your work is better than that.

I pretty much only photograph in colour, and I see myself as something of a colourist. Yet most of my favourite photographers work is in monochrome. I think that's because I am also looking for a strong sense of formal structure, and that is traditionally found more often in monochrome than colour.

Monochrome is like a white gallery wall and a hushed atmosphere. It leads the viewer into a state where they don't just look through the photograph into the scene. In colour that's harder to do. Sometimes strong colour does the trick (David Maisel is a particular favourite), sometimes subtle luminosity (Cape Light or Misrach's Golden Gate pics). Sometimes *big* prints, but that's another discussion.

What is really hard is finding in the real world the sorts of colour combinations and contrasts which are common among colourist painters. Graffiti is cheating :-)

[invisibleflash]

OP...Yes, possibly. But that can be said about any other trick that can be used to turn a snapshot into a photograph. Some things are better in color, others in BW. Let the image talk and not one's ego that forces itself upon an image from some preconceived notion that will betray the image.

[Jac@stafford.net]

[...] To be sure, I can’t think of anyone who walks through the doors of perception, drugs or not, and returns to sing the praises of 10 black and white

You made my day!

[Tin Can]

Takes one to know one!


Drug users (I mean the likes of William James, Aldous Huxley, John Lennon, etc.) acclaim color as profound, worthy of more attention and more real than masses, positions, dimensions.

To be sure, I can’t think of anyone who walks through the doors of perception, drugs or not, and returns to sing the praises of 10 black and white zones.

“Cellophane flowers of yellow and green...”

[Kirk Gittings]

Kirk, to me, your statement on its own comes across as a camera club cliché. Your work is better than that.

Really? You must go to a different league of cameras clubs than I give presentations at. One of the reasons I hesitate giving talks at them (and I have probably given 50 or so) is that I've never had an intelligent discussion at one.

[Tobias Key]

Personally, I think you could only get away with this if William Eggleston, Stephen Shore and Joel Sternfeld never existed. But they do, so you can't.

[Merg Ross]

Just say you're color blind. It worked for Brett Weston!

[Struan Gray]

Really? You must go to a different league of cameras clubs than I give presentations at. One of the reasons I hesitate giving talks at them (and I have probably given 50 or so) is that I've never had an intelligent discussion at one.

Perhaps it's a Euro thing :-)

[Heroique]

Schizophrenics commonly report a connection between reality, profundity, and color.

Most people, of course, mourn their lack common sense.

Paleolithic cave painters lacked the most common sense of all – they used color when there was no chance of daylight.

[Oren Grad]

Oren I don't know how old you are, But I would suggest that people who grew up in the time when newspaper photographs were all B&W (like me) would see B&W as more real? Going to UNM in the late 60's when I was 18-19 stripped that idea from me real quick. Newhall and Coke loved to show how plastic a media photography is. But that is not a common experience for people my age (62).

When I started consuming mass media in earnest - late '60s - newspaper pictures were almost entirely B&W, but IIRC magazine pictures had already substantially gone over to color. OTOH, we didn't have a color TV, and we didn't switch from B&W to color for our family snapshots, until some ways into the '70s. There may be some clues in there, but I don't know what it all adds up to.

[hoffner]

"Be sure to give a descriptive title to your question. For people searching or browsing the archives, a nonsensical or uninformative subject (like "Oops!", "Read this!", or even "Lenses") just makes it harder for people to find answers to questions."
From Usage guidelines.

[Michael E]

Kirk, to me, your statement on its own comes across as a camera club cliché. Your work is better than that.

+ 1, also from Europe :-)

Kirk, I buy the first part of your statement, but I think your conclusion is too clumsy. It insults people's intelligence. Let them come to their own conclusions. For the same reason, I don't like suggestive titles for images or anything else (in Germany, we are being flooded with tea named "inner peace", "hot love" or "pure lust"). If your argument is valid, they will will follow your lead. Unless profundity is your declared goal, don't mention it.


Recently i read a surprising comment from a well-informed photographer who stated that B&W is a cheap-shot aesthetic and color photography is much more difficult.

I have seen too much artsy B&W photography without any profound meaning to dismiss this statement.

To contribute to the discussion: I use B&W, because I feel comfortable with it. Looking at the world, I see B&W images. I think ten zones of gray are beautiful. B&W photography has been anachronistic for so long that we can skip the discussion about the latest looks and styles and just concentrate on the content of the image. I admire many color photographers, but my first love will always be B&W.

Michael

[barnninny]

I don't know if B&W is more profound, or if color is harder. Those are debates that probably will never be settled.

I know color is harder for me, and I know that, in my opinion, not many photographers have done it well. It seems like the temptation to simply overwhelm the viewer with vividness is too strong for most of us to resist. Many of them are intensely pretty photographs, and that can be very nice to look at, but it doesn't keep drawing you back to look at the image again and again over the years.

It's like a dime store whodunit: you devour it once, and then it's got nothing left for you.

I already mentioned this briefly in another thread, but it's what I always think of in discussions like these. William James used to talk about "debauching" things, by which he meant taking something we think we are intimately familiar with, something we think we have no more to learn about, and making it just slightly alien so we can realize there are aspects of it we don't know at all -- defamiliarizing it.

To me, that's the great thing about B&W. Without calling attention to itself, it defamiliarizes the subject just enough to make it possible to see it in new ways, to rediscover its strangeness. In that sense, I think B&W has something to say that color does not.

[Mark Sawyer]

I think traditional black and white has become a sort of "classical" genre for photography, much as there is a "classical" genre in music. And seeing color work by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston always felt a little like listening to an accomplished symphony orchestra play rock or country.

Removing color might remove that layer of reality, but color is (usually) a pretty superficial layer of reality. A Jackson Pollock painting isn't less abstract in color, and watching Honey Boo Boo in black and white won't make it more abstract or profound.

I think we somehow eventually gravitate to whatever processes we want to work in, given its process and outcome. But its tough to define the why's behind the wants...

[John Kasaian]

Black and white isn't inherently an abstraction for my son, who is color blind.
I like B&W because when the prints get old, the colors won't turn all wonky. :)

[barnninny]

watching Honey Boo Boo in black and white won't make it more abstract or profound.


That made me giggle.

[mdm]

I think B&W is like listening to a single instrument and colour is the whole orchestra. Photography is an abstraction, just like music.

[N Dhananjay]

I came to photography from painting and I engage in both with some vigor. But that explains why I prefer B&W in photography. If I want to explore color, I tend to reach for my paints. Force of habit, perhaps but I think there is more to it than that.

Speaking for myself, I am not interested in providing someone with a second-hand experience of something. So the idea of a color photograph giving the viewer the experience of 'being there' to a greater extent than B&W does not make much sense to me - more precisely, it is a bit of red herring for my work. At the end of the day, the finished print is the experience the viewer has. In that sense, a good work of art (print, painting etc.) is already an abstraction - it may happen to be a painting or photograph of X (Madame X) or Y (Yosemite) but it has to be more than that - the work stands or falls by other criteria.

In that one sense, I think good color photography is harder. When you are painting, you do not usually paint leaves and blades of grass. In fact, economy of means and suggestion is often admired. In that sense, you start by abstracting broad masses and tones. That is difficult in photography. As Richard Ivins has argued, photography is unique in that it provides a density of information without as much interference or mediation from the medium/craftsperson. Especially in color, I think it makes it harder for the photographer to get over the 'This is X or Y' mental block. At least, I think that is why I find more B&W photographs and photographers whose work I like than color photographs and photographers.

So, I think it is correct that B&W is more abstract than color, but that is for the photographer and not the viewer. Perhaps B&W makes it easier/forces you to come to grips with the abstract qualities you are exploring in your work, while color photography makes it more difficult to do so. And I think that is what an artist has to eventually get to grips with. To get away from illustration and find the abstract qualities (whatever they are) that underlie your work.

Cheers, DJ

[Greg Miller]

Show me an example?

My point was based in logic.

The logic is more apparent if you switch genres of art. You could say "color painting is too close to normal perception-B&W pen & ink is inherently an abstraction and therefore intrinsically more profound.

But if a color painting reaches the same level of abstraction, it would be even more profound because it had the handicap of proximity to normal perception.

[Greg Miller]

Show me an example?

Which is more of an abstraction? Which is more profound?

95774

95775

[sanking]

Which is more of an abstraction? Which is more profound?

95774

95775


Is this a trick question?

The B&W image, IMHO, is clearly much more of an abstraction than the color image. The color image is immediately recognizable for its basic reality, the B&W image is much more ambiguous for many reasons.

Sorry if you don't like the answer to your question, but you did ask!

Sandy

[Mark Barendt]

Is this a trick question?

The B&W image, IMHO, is clearly more more of an abstraction than the color image. The color image is immediately recognizable for its basic reality, the B&W image is much more ambiguous for many reasons.

Sorry if you don't like the answer to your question, but you did ask!

Sandy

Well you are entitled to your opinion.

I see it differently.

[neil poulsen]

For me, black and white isn't so much of an abstraction as it is a simplification. It's the absence of color, and color is a complexity, and thereby, it can be a distraction. Black and white gets right down the essence of the relationships and forms of the image.

[Mark Barendt]

Very reasonable thought Neil.

[tgtaylor]

Depending on the subject, I photograph in both black & white and color. But if it works, black & white is able to elict a much greater emotive reaction in the viewer than color. I served as a combat infantryman during the Vietnam conflict. During periods of intense combat the scene before you became monochromatic - black & white - and any color that was there was muted.

Thomas

[Kirk Gittings]

Interesting perspective Thomas.

[Cletus]

Without reading theough the last couple pages of comments here, my two bits -

ALL Photographs, whether fine art, commercial, digital, analog, whatever are no more than a means of visual communication. Media. For the artist, the photographic media is also a means of personal expression, which for the artist, also elevates the photograph beyond simple 'media'.

If all that is true, then isn't the choice of black and white over color simply a means of individual expression? If it were something more than that, or if need there were some inherent profundity (sorry Kirk, to use your words) why aren't most advertising and other non-art media photos in black and white?

[Cletus]

hic....I've been drinkin'. hic

[cjbroadbent]

Color is close to normal perception - b&w is an abstraction. Illustration - interpretation.

[mdm]

In my opinion all photographs are an abstraction because of the frame. Its like standing in the open looking at a view with the wind in your hair compared to looking at the same view through the window of a car or a train or house, only more abstracted again. The fact is that most abstract paintings are colour, does that make them less abstract than a black and white painting.

[Doremus Scudder]

I'll take the easy road, and quote a photographer who worked in both color and black & white:

" The prejudice many photographers have against color photography comes from not thinking of color as form. You can say things with color that can't be said in black-and-white. But those who say that color will eventually replace black-and-white are talking nonsense. The two do not compete with each other. They are different means to different ends".

I know, Kirk, this is not an answer to your question, but I couldn't resist!

Oh, the quote. EW, 1953


I love this, and it's exactly how I feel. I often liken my choice of working only in black-and-white to music: Black-and-white is my instrument and my preferred style. That doesn't mean I don't like jazz or musical theater...

BTW, A review of one of my shows said that my photographs were "the most colorful black-and-white photographs" that the reviewer had seen. I like it when a medium transcends its limitations like that.

Best,

Doremus

[Steve Smith]

It's much better than the title of the thread!


Steve.

[Greg Miller]

Is this a trick question?

The B&W image, IMHO, is clearly much more of an abstraction than the color image. The color image is immediately recognizable for its basic reality, the B&W image is much more ambiguous for many reasons.

Sorry if you don't like the answer to your question, but you did ask!

Sandy

Not a trick question at all. Abstraction and profundity are highly subjective an personal. I expected that there would be a mix of responses. No need to apologize for your opinion (unless you think that we should all share your opinion).

My opinion happens to be different. Considering abstraction. Anyone who has seen half dome will instantly recognize it in the photo- those who have not seen half dome will still instantly recognize it as a stone cliff face. I think many people will take a fraction of a second in the color photo to understand that the photo is of a bridge. And even then understanding which specific bridge will take many people even longer. As for being profound (or deep), I find there is much more to consider in the color photo regarding the photographers choice to use multiple images, and the execution of it and why.

But that's just me, and I recognize and respect that others will think differently.

[jeroldharter]

I would substitute "expressive" for profound. Sounds good.

The profundity is your expression through the abstraction of b&w.

[TXFZ1]

Really? You must go to a different league of cameras clubs than I give presentations at. One of the reasons I hesitate giving talks at them (and I have probably given 50 or so) is that I've never had an intelligent discussion at one.

Interesting as from my experience this is the exact reason I quit going to listen to the presentations. I have always found the presenters as pretentous and ignorant. Have we met?

David

[Bruce Watson]

What do you think of this statement of mine-describing why I prefer B&W photography for my personal work:

"Color is too close to normal perception-b&w is inherently an abstraction and therefore intrinsically more profound."

I would replace the word "profound" with "revealing". B&W lets one more easily see what lies beneath the distraction that color often is, to the underlying structure, texture, and rhythm of a scene. So... revealing.

[tgtaylor]

Interesting perspective Thomas.

Yes. I believe that Clint Eastwood both understood and tried to convey this by filming Letters from Iwo Jima in muted color.

Thomas

[Kirk Gittings]

Interesting again. He was not a vet right? Something he got from vets he researched the film with perhaps.

BTW, thank you for your service.

[Greg Miller]

What do you think of this statement of mine-describing why I prefer B&W photography for my personal work:

I'm still struggling with virtually all of the logic of this statement.

Color can be abstract
Color can be abstract but not profound
Color can be abstract and profound
Color can be profound but not abstract
B&W can be abstract
B&W can be abstract but not profound
B&W can be abstract and profound

Does abstract directly lead to profound?
Does the absence of abstract rule out profound?

I don't agree that by nature of being B&W, and image is inherently more abstract than color. Or that by being more abstract, that the work is intrinsically more profound. Perhaps you can say that for you personally that is the case. But it is not a universal truth.

In my opinion some photography is an expressive art. Expressive arts are intended to lead the viewer to feel or think something. Being profound might lead the viewer to feel or think something. But being profound isn't a requirement for that. An extremely simple concept can lead to deep feeling on the part of the viewer because it hits directly at the heart of an emotion.

[Bill Burk]

Kirk,

I often get asked why I don't work in color.

I ask people whether they like the book or the movie. B&W is the book, color is the movie... I find the imagination is much richer while reading, with a few exceptions for movies that have been truly exceptional. Movies are generally a passive "taking in" of information and story where a book engages you.

My favorite portrait is very intimate. The subject sat still for 90 seconds, we breathed together and she gave me everything of herself. It was a beautiful moment we shared. I tell people that if she had a exquisite green shirt on that we would be looking at color. I would end up talking about color vs talking about intimacy. I much prefer talking about the bigger words like intimacy, integrity, presence, etc.

Lenny

Wow, Lenny I like that comparison. Of course, with color the print is passively "taken in" while with black and white the viewer participates in the experience. Like listening to the radio, it engages the "theater of the mind" and the actors take on personal visualizations instead of being restricted to the specific appearance that is given to you when watching the same storyline on TV.

[Bill Burk]

I'd read about these images and never seen them before just now...

When I read through the life of Wynn Bullock, and see that he explored both black and white and color at different times, it reminds me to keep the door open...

Maybe one day I will want to return to color to explore what it can offer.

Right now I am most satisfied with the prints that I make in black and white. So I am shooting in black and white to give me negatives to print.

http://www.wynnbullockphotography.com/galleries_color/color_index.html

[Greg Miller]

It is interesting that B&W photographers describe color as something that get's in the way, while color photographers talk about color as a tool to be used to complete their vision. Both genres are very capable mediums for communication. One, or the other, simply is better better fit for many people, but not to the exclusion of being a better fit for others. I'm sure another photographer could find that green shirt to be an asset to tell a more complete story. Not that either is better or worse than the other.

[Mark Barendt]

Wow, Lenny I like that comparison. Of course, with color the print is passively "taken in" while with black and white the viewer participates in the experience. Like listening to the radio, it engages the "theater of the mind" and the actors take on personal visualizations instead of being restricted to the specific appearance that is given to you when watching the same storyline on TV.

Bill, me thinks that while that might be true for you, it would be a real streatch to say that its true in general.

The choice to use B&W instead of color, or vice-versa is only one of many options for controlling what we give the viewer to get them to participate.

I'd actually suggest that, as tools to accomplish your stated objective, the active choice of composition and depth of focus are as strong or stronger than the choice of B&W or color.

[Mark Barendt]

Second thought Bill,

It is not like monochrome photography is all B&W. We regularly manipulate the color of our final prints for effect.

[Kirk Gittings]

I'd actually suggest that, as tools to accomplish your stated objective, the active choice of composition and depth of focus are as strong or stronger than the choice of B&W or color.

Very true but a far less asked question IME of a b&w photographer. In fact i can only remember being asked something like this 3 times since I got serious about photography in 1970, whereas the number of questions related to b&w vs. color question I could not begin to count.

[Bill Burk]

Very true but a far less asked question IME of a b&w photographer. In fact i can only remember being asked something like this 3 times since I got serious about photography in 1970, whereas the number of questions related to b&w vs. color question I could not begin to count.

That's a good point. People wonder why I shoot black and white. They don't wonder why trees.

[Mark Barendt]

Very true but a far less asked question IME of a b&w photographer. In fact i can only remember being asked something like this 3 times since I got serious about photography in 1970, whereas the number of questions related to b&w vs. color question I could not begin to count.

In that sense "why do you use B&W?" is a lot like being asked "why do you (or I) still use film?" or "why do some people still have dumb phones? or "what is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?"

In all seriousness I think you could probably answer simply by saying "42" or "because" and then point at one of your prints. If they don't get that B&W is simply a personal artistic choice then no answer you provide is going to get them change or buy a print.

[Mark Barendt]

They don't wonder why trees.

I do. ;)

[Maris Rusis]

From years as a gallerist, an exhibitor of photographs, sometime director of a photographic gallery, critic, and commentator I've watched people looking at pictures.

A typical exhibition of thirty colour photographs takes the average opening night viewer only about 10 to 15 minutes to process. While I'm working the crowd the questions are always the same: where was this taken, when did this happen, what's the name of this. 99% of the mental activity going on in the room is dedicated to identifying the subject and filing it away in a comfortable real-world context. After the hors d'oeuvres are finished and there is only red wine left I generally don't see knots of people gathered in front of a colour picture arguing about what it means. But that does happen at some black and white exhibitions.

A black and white photograph, however it looks, could have been otherwise. Its appearance is not rigidly dictated by subject matter and it is a limited source of information about that subject matter. On the other hand it is rich in hints about the choices the photographer made. And inevitably those choices are driven by the photographer's creative agenda. The viewers challenge is to deconvolute that agenda from the visual clues in the photograph; unravelling an abstraction in other words.

Mental process that invoke simile, metaphor, synecdoche, metonymy, connotation, allusion, and illusion are dragged into the process to make sense of what is being looked at. People with a richer intellectual history of looking at photographs see more than the casual viewer. I've watched many people "mentalise" black and white photographs and their destination tilts toward understanding rather than classification.

[Kirk Gittings]

In that sense "why do you use B&W?" is a lot like being asked "why do you (or I) still use film?" or "why do some people still have dumb phones? or "what is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?"

In all seriousness I think you could probably answer simply by saying "42" or "because" and then point at one of your prints. If they don't get that B&W is simply a personal artistic choice then no answer you provide is going to get them change or buy a print.

Well I am not really trying to get them to change or buy a print. Beyond trying to get someone to understand my POV on photography or my reason for me making an image the rest is really up to them........or not. Convince them or sell them? It's not me. I've never done that with either my commercial or personal work or when teaching photo. I'm actually a little amazed manytimes how far I have gotten in photography.......

[Merg Ross]

Well I am not really trying to get them to change or buy a print. I'm actually a little amazed manytimes how far I have gotten in photography.......

Perhaps there is a correlation!

[sun of sand]

"I'm not looking for affirmation"
but you said "or not?" right in the thread title
sure sounds it
In fact, not sure what else it could be but that

"..you..wanted some input to help clarify and maybe refine it"
"Absolutely."

what?


If a personal artist statement is so PERSONAL that you need others help in udnerstanding your own feelings on something or
MAKE IT SOUND BETTER/MORE INTELLECTUAL
How personal can it really be?

that's like giving someone an instant personality makeover to land the chick at the table on the other side of the room
"oh, pretend you like books ..she's a book-lover"
how fake is that, right?
remember the old saying "just be yourself"

"to understand it better."
if this were true than your personal artist statement would either HAVE TO BE
IMPERSONAL/WISHING
UNFACTUAL/NOT A STATEMENT OF BELIEFS
same thing I guess


"I admire people who can make.. images in color. I don't feel like I can and wonder if it is actually a weekness"

You answered your own question, I believe. It is a weakness. Everyone has them.
This is like the fat kid who says reading books is more profound than hitting home runs
Is it that hitting home runs is devoid of meaning or is it that he just can't do it so he goes "troll" for the rest of his life as BOOK BOB in attempt to make himself believe that he NEVER DID wish to hit them

Not many people believe what they are not good at is meaningful

Athletics is what makes me feel alive
I have NEVER read a novel. I don't think fiction is important. It's just someones imagination written down. I have my own. I have no need for others to know what is in it
But I do like movies.:D
Have I gained from it somehow with fiction being so prominent in our culture
point to religious texts
PROBABLY. But maybe I'm just a good person. Maybe I don't need to rock people in the head because they're not like me
Who knows. Very complex and incapable of testing without live human experimentation so it can now be claimed forever and ever

That is not discussion on religion give me a break





"concentrate on the more essential and generic qualities of the object rather than its specific attributes, and on its tonal values and the qualities of light."

This is what I think black and white is about. Tonality. People often talk about light. "Im a light chaser"
yeah
..but light is what accentuates tonality.
it's those tonal values that black and white illustrates so concretely
In color you san see the qualities of the light but it MAY be a little more difficult. Seeing it in color is perhaps a higher ability
Color photography I BELIEVE is more about color contrast than light/tonalities
I think that may be BS, too.
Color always seems the making of a patchwork quilt out of nature
I enjoy it ..but color costs too much to really do it.

B&W does lend itself to interpretation MUCH MORE than color, though
that is clear
you can alter a b&w photo to hell and back
you can make a piece of fiction out of the very real environment


that's a circle, eh

[sun of sand]

"People with a richer intellectual history of looking at photographs see more than the casual viewer."

I don't completely buy it. On average, yes. I believe there's something else behind it.
..and maybe they'd see "more" because they've already seen the same thing

[Mark Barendt]

Mental process that invoke simile, metaphor, synecdoche, metonymy, connotation, allusion, and illusion are dragged into the process to make sense of what is being looked at.

I do agree that most color photography tends toward connection with real stuff but I don't believe for a second that that's a failing of the genre, more a lack of imagination or interest on the part of many, if not most color photographers/galleries and I think it's probably driven largely by the expectations of the buying public. (Color work seems to be what pays the bills at the local galleries.)

It may be less common but color work can get us wondering too, we just use other tools to get there.

Color can definitely supply clues that B&W doesn't, this Erwitt inspired knockoff shot http://www.flickr.com/photos/73565874@N00/3145989371 wouldn't have the same effect in color, too much information would be available, it would be too easy to see the reality. There are times though when B&W can't give the viewer enough info to get the message across like here http://www.flickr.com/photos/40962351@N00/3638878185 or here http://www.flickr.com/photos/21391940@N08/4601950633

Double exposure http://www.flickr.com/photos/57372227@N00/371241024

Composition http://www.flickr.com/photos/61042010@N00/4025975132

[Kirk Gittings]

Perhaps there is a correlation!

Maybe. Thanks for that Merg.

[barnninny]

From years as a gallerist, an exhibitor of photographs, sometime director of a photographic gallery, critic, and commentator I've watched people looking at pictures.

A typical exhibition of thirty colour photographs takes the average opening night viewer only about 10 to 15 minutes to process. While I'm working the crowd the questions are always the same: where was this taken, when did this happen, what's the name of this. 99% of the mental activity going on in the room is dedicated to identifying the subject and filing it away in a comfortable real-world context. After the hors d'oeuvres are finished and there is only red wine left I generally don't see knots of people gathered in front of a colour picture arguing about what it means. But that does happen at some black and white exhibitions.

A black and white photograph, however it looks, could have been otherwise. Its appearance is not rigidly dictated by subject matter and it is a limited source of information about that subject matter. On the other hand it is rich in hints about the choices the photographer made. And inevitably those choices are driven by the photographer's creative agenda. The viewers challenge is to deconvolute that agenda from the visual clues in the photograph; unravelling an abstraction in other words.

Mental process that invoke simile, metaphor, synecdoche, metonymy, connotation, allusion, and illusion are dragged into the process to make sense of what is being looked at. People with a richer intellectual history of looking at photographs see more than the casual viewer. I've watched many people "mentalise" black and white photographs and their destination tilts toward understanding rather than classification.

Thanks for sharing your experience, Maris. I don't know how many of us get to watch large numbers of people look at photographs, but I know I don't, so I found it very valuable.

[Brian C. Miller]

(I did read the whole thread first.)


What do you think of this statement of mine-describing why I prefer B&W photography for my personal work:

Color is too close to normal perception-b&w is inherently an abstraction and therefore intrinsically more profound.

A couple of things leap to mind.

"Profound." After looking at the definition of profound (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/profound), I recommend that you don't use the word, but instead insert one of the definitions. I have never seen any photograph that has come anywhere close to the truly profound experiences I've had in real life.
"Abstraction." Do you really want your photographs to be abstract (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abstract)? How many abstract buildings have you photographed? That people could actually live and work in them? Imagine trying to get or give directions to the bathroom in one of Escher's buildings.

Sun of Sand made some good points. If you need the help of an ad-hoc review committee, it's time to rethink it.

Try snappy answers (http://www.madmagazine.com/tags/snappy-answers-to-stupid-questions) instead:
"Why do you photograph in black and white rather than color?"
-- There's plenty of color there after I drop two strawberry tabs!
-- But I did photograph it in color! I just keep forgetting the prints in my jeans when I do the wash.
-- I lost my Crayons, so that's why there's no color.
-- See, the thing is that all photographs are actually in black and white, and they have to be sent to Ted Turner for the color to be added. I missed the deadline for this exhibition, so that's why there's no color.

[Kirk Gittings]

Most of you, including you Brian, are confusing abstraction with the genre of full blown Abstract Art. Abstraction is a process that does not always end in a completely abstract artwork.

And your point about buildings is irrelevant to this discussion as we are talking about images of buildings not buildings themselves. We don't have to worry about people living in an abstract image of a building.

But yes I often times create very abstracted images of buildings (my clients love them) because sometimes an abstracted detail can really get to the idea of a design better than images that just document the physicality of a building design.

"If you need the help of an ad-hoc review committee, it's time to rethink it." really? please...........I was, and still am more interested in whether people understood my POV-not whether they agreed with it.

At this point the only thing I might change is I might add "In my experience" to the beginning of it.

[Bill Burk]

Most artists statements I come up with for myself sound hokey. I look forward to yours once you think it out and write it...

I like a casual, interview style statement, like the kind you could expect from Paul Caponigro.

Poetry complements photography well, I think the artist statement, if not exactly poetic, should work as if it were one - using words that everyone knows to explain in a way that users can picture in their own mind what you are trying to say. If you rely on your sub-conscious in your photography, or your intuition, then you can just say you don't know but something in your heart tells you to do it.

[Kirk Gittings]

Bill its not really an artist statement per se but a concise little explanation of why I shoot b&w for my personal work that I use in talks and I have two talks coming up here this summer in Santa Fe and at the Petrified Forest. In such talks I am not trying to change anyone's mind but trying to get them to understand my POV. Here is the closest thing I have to an artist statement:
http://www.gittingsphoto.com/content.html?page=1

[Bill Burk]

Great, you have a few quotes and your statement tells an imaginative story. That's what I had in mind.

You probably don't want to play the craft or technical side, because emotionally the black and white landscape reaches you more directly than color.

Sometimes I think in too technical terms, like humans can see infinitely small details. Look at stars for example. Black and white shows detail better. But that is only a mechanical reason why I feel the visual sensation of looking over a black and white print with grasses and water and granite... a similar sensation or at least it makes me remember the sensation I had when I first looked at the scene in life.

[Bruce Watson]

Bill its not really an artist statement per se but a concise little explanation of why I shoot b&w for my personal work...

Ah, in that case it's easy. Say this: "I shoot B&W for my personal work." The fact that it's personal work is the explanation of why.

[Greg Miller]

Most of you, including you Brian, are confusing abstraction with the genre of full blown Abstract Art. Abstraction is a process that does not always end in a completely abstract artwork.

I already was aware of the distibction. But expecting the general public to grasp the true meaning might be expecting too much.

[mdm]

Perhaps there is a scale of abstractness, low to high, but I still dont think B&W is inherently more abstarct than colour. Take a video game for example, possibly highly realistic colour, also clearly abstact, it bears no relation to anything tangible. An abstract photograph is almost by definition highly realistic, context is the missing bit. True, a colour photograph carries more information therefore more context, but in an abstract painting colour can be used to confuse context, shurely in the world of digital imaging photography is the same.

[DrTang]

films cheaper

[Oren Grad]

My answer to the question of why I work in B&W, and in my case B&W film and traditional darkroom paper in particular, is that I've tried photography many different ways and so far this is what I enjoy most. I like working with film cameras and silver materials, and I like seeing what things look like when photographed and printed in silver.

Why do I prefer that? Beats me. I can carry on about this or that attribute, but that really just elaborates on the *what*. Ultimately I don't know *why*.

[Drew Wiley]

No actual photograph is an abstraction or ever will be, not as long as there is any kind of subject involved. But no photograph is ever visual reality either. Color versus black and white has ZERO to do with it. "Abstract" is a word which should be erased from our whole vocabulary. It might make sense if we're talking about
totally nonobjective paintings by Kandinsky or Pollock, or if you're randomly swirling around dyes and developers in a darkroom tray. But once a lens is involved, never. I once got a viewer so confused with spatial relations in my color prints in a major venue that I got cussed out - but even that I'd never label as abstract.
It was a complex actual subject that lended itself to that kind of sophisticated treatment - something visually real to me, just as real as some stupid chipmunk
in a postcard. But then when you print any such thing, it's all about whether you're a skilled illusionist or an unskilled one. It's never totally real either.

[Jac@stafford.net]

One of my many hats is to help computer-naive artists by photographing their work, usually sculpture, and submitting samples of their work over the net as they apply for grants.

So I have seen many artist statements. None have been as weak as the OP's, however considering the efforts of my constituents to obfuscate I, and judges in general, would probably consider his a breath of fresh air. If one's photography is vernacular, then the statement fits well.

In a separate thread I would like very much to post some artist statements along with what I know of the artists. Life is short. What are they going to do? Beat me up?

[Drew Wiley]

Yep.

[Jac@stafford.net]

Yep.

They are gonna shoot me? :(

[Mark Barendt]

Interesting thoughts Drew, Distillation might be a workable word instead.

I tend to think of abstraction more as a limit to what I give to the viewer. There are many levels of abstraction or distillation. First is simply what I exclude from the composition, next maybe limiting the color, DOF... Until I have distilled or abstracted the content down to just what I want to show.

[Kirk Gittings]

One of my many hats is to help computer-naive artists by photographing their work, usually sculpture, and submitting samples of their work over the net as they apply for grants.

So I have seen many artist statements. None have been as weak as the OP's, however considering the efforts of my constituents to obfuscate I, and judges in general, would probably consider his a breath of fresh air. If one's photography is vernacular, then the statement fits well.

In a separate thread I would like very much to post some artist statements along with what I know of the artists. Life is short. What are they going to do? Beat me up?

Friking hilarious. Ok so maybe I should bow to your expertise with artist statements......nah. I think not. Why? You are apparently pretty clueless for two very important reasons. First because mine is real for me and second-it flat works. Is there any other valid criteria? Is it perfect-obviously not. Is it literature-hardly. Poetry-not. But it works dude and more importantly its me.

Lets see now, with my artist statement which is the weakest you have seen (which BTW is a basic outline for every talk and written application I give on my work which I give often-with two talks coming up), I'm going on 90+ shows in my career (not including restaurants or art fairs) and two monographs. I teach at three universities, including two of the top five photo programs in the country. I've also taught at many prestigious workshops including the Santa Fe Workshops. My b&w print sales have tripled in the last few years. My commercial photography is published world wide and has sustained me and my family since 1978. I got a full ride to graduate school. I'm 2 for 2 since I started applying for artist residencies last year, including being the first AIR in the history of the BLM. What else hmmmm oh yeah I had a major NEA grant (and numerous others), was part of the Polaroid Artist Support Group, and I'm on the Freestyle Advisory Board of Photographic Professionals in Hollywood. That's all that comes to mind at the moment. FYI virtually all of that (except maybe the commercial work) at some time or another required an artist statement of some kind. Damn, that artist statement, you know the weakest one you have seen (and all the previous weak iterations for almost 4 decades), is obviously holding me back.

You? How are you doing?

[hoffner]

One of my many hats is to help computer-naive artists by photographing their work, usually sculpture, and submitting samples of their work over the net as they apply for grants.

So I have seen many artist statements. None have been as weak as the OP's, however considering the efforts of my constituents to obfuscate I, and judges in general, would probably consider his a breath of fresh air. If one's photography is vernacular, then the statement fits well.

In a separate thread I would like very much to post some artist statements along with what I know of the artists. Life is short. What are they going to do? Beat me up?

+1, wholeheartedly. By the way, have you also noticed how the B&W movies were intrinsically deeper in their photography than the color ones?
I just hope Kirk, you do not teach that on those 2 of the 5 best photo schools you like to repeatedly inform us about. Because color can as much be an abstraction element as the lack of it and abstraction is not an automatic equivalent of profundity in art. Never been.

[Struan Gray]

Come on folks. There's a difference between criticism and slinging mud.

LF.info is one of the few place on the internet where I have seen good back-and-forth criticism between non specialists. I have learned a lot from people here who - calmly and sincerely - pointed out my faults.

But this it turning into dpreview.

[sun of sand]

"..more interested in whether people understood my POV"

then why not put it on a plane that is very easy to understand.


to me, this shows you are interested
and by you I mean EVERYONE with such a statement
in being understood by those you wish to be understood by
those being the illuminated enlightened intellectuals whose praise means something to you
and who can open doors for you


do you care if my neighbor understands you?
I doubt it.
which i think is pretty shameful
but we are all flawed

[sun of sand]

on your site I like your Lonely Places quote

I'd go with something on that order. that's real. That helps me understand you .. understand your photographs better

not this other junk.


keep that statement/biography
that's who you are
I like that person
I pretty much detest this other wannabe fanciful dude

[Ed Richards]

Kirk,

My gut reaction is that same as yours about black and white. But then there is Jay Maisel, who really makes color work:

http://youtu.be/3U7bnIYcvRM

Jay reminds me that color can be as abstract and thoughtful as black and white while still being done as straight photography.

I suspect that most of us are old foggies who have roots in a black and white world and associations set up by that world. I wonder what black and white means to a generation who has only seen it as intentional art.

[cosmicexplosion]

Colour is at the mercy of fashion.
And can clash with it.
Black and white is like style, it's good any where.

[Kirk Gittings]

+1, wholeheartedly. By the way, have you also noticed how the B&W movies were intrinsically deeper in their photography than the color ones?
I just hope Kirk, you do not teach that on those 2 of the 5 best photo schools you like to repeatedly inform us about. Because color can as much be an abstraction element as the lack of it and abstraction is not an automatic equivalent of profundity in art. Never been.

Cheap, laughable shot dude. I teach what I know how to do, and I do what I think. But don't worry I have been cited numerous times by students and faculty for excellence in teaching, and my classes are very popular, as I have said how many times on this thread?-I'm not trying to change anybodies mind. I'm explaining why I shoot b&w.

[hoffner]

Laughable? Sure! The more you beat your breast to give weight to a nonsensical affirmation. Go on.

[Kirk Gittings]

Anyway, enough on this thread. I appreciate all the input and will think about all the advice. Time to move on. Here is another thought many will hate.....

Art is not a tea party. Be real. Be bold. Take risks. I have oftentimes not lived up to that in my long career, but I am 62 now and time is short. Hasta!

[Tin Can]

Exactly, I prefer B&W TV and old movies, raised up on it. Trained eyes from birth. I remember watching Ed Sullivan bring us the Beatles in 1964 on a 8" B&W TV with 3 families watching one TV.

I can see what I like, but I do have trouble producing it. ;)


Kirk,

My gut reaction is that same as yours about black and white. But then there is Jay Maisel, who really makes color work:

http://youtu.be/3U7bnIYcvRM

Jay reminds me that color can be as abstract and thoughtful as black and white while still being done as straight photography.

I suspect that most of us are old foggies who have roots in a black and white world and associations set up by that world. I wonder what black and white means to a generation who has only seen it as intentional art.

[Drew Wiley]

... and why not? You've already got a good commercial track record that should remain sound, Kirk, and probably don't need to prove anything at this point, so why not loosen up and follow your heart?

[dperez]

For me, there are pictures that are best done in color. I prefer B&W when color will not add to the picture, or if it might be too distracting. When shapes or forms are centrally important, I find B&W works better to present these elements. But color can also be powerful and can be important. I don't try to over-think it or get philosophical about it, most of the time when I see a scene I'm instinctively able to tell if it would be best rendered in color or not. Nowadays, I shoot more B&W than I might otherwise due to the cost of 8x10 Kodak Portra 400. Cha-ching!

-Daniel



What do you think of this statement of mine-describing why I prefer B&W photography for my personal work:

[sun of sand]

coarse or inappropriate language will not be tolerated here

man I see foul language in many threads
i usually abbreviate these words but sometimes ..we all know what they are and mean and say them ..most of us say them since a very early age


PUBLISH A LIST OF ACCEPTABLE WORDS
NOT TOLERATED should mean 0
IS THERE SOME QUANTITY A POST CANNOT EXCEED?
ALL foul language should be deleted
NOT UP FOR "moderator calls"
give me a break

not that i give a shit
but wrong


KEN
make it over to that resignation thread
needs attention as I do believe blatently calling someone an idiot is rude/uncivil and an attack on the individual and not their message content
..which while not stated in a very civil manner does have some merit to it
but people are a little too happy to jmp on the hobnob train to acknowledge it

[cps]

Kirk,

Trying to steer this back toward the conceptual discussion about "why black and white", which I have been pondering a bit myself lately.

I shoot both black and white and color. Like many, I feel like color is "hard". But why? I think it's not just the added dimension, I think it's also the strange rarity of it. Color, I mean. This thought first came to me when I browsed the handfuls of color photographs taken by folks like Russell Lee during the FSA era, many of which have a pretty dull palette compared to what we are used to.

But, take a hard look around, not just at the interesting things in your FOV, but at everything. My observation is that, especially if you are out in nature, and you just point your camera around you, pretty much the majority of what you see is going to be a mix of dull browns, greys, greens, and blues. Sky, trees, grass, dirt, old leaves, concrete, rocks, tarmac, clouds. Frankly, the more I look around, the more I notice that there is a lot of not very interesting (to me) color in the world. It's actually pretty hard to find interesting color that pops on screen or film. And, when you get down to it, a lot of the wild colors one encounters are anyway made by the hand of man.

Of course there are plenty of beautiful colors offered up by nature. Wonderful images can be made from a palettle of blue, brown and green. But, an alien trying to learn about our planet by looking at popular Flickr archives might be deeply disappointed to discover upon arrival that the earth is not, in fact, awash in highly saturated explosions of colorful sunsets, turquoise water, flowers, clothing, painted houses, cars etc. I think the success of a Meyerowitz, or a Shore, or an Eggleston is their adeptness at finding the abstraction of color - finding that little moment of color in what is often a fairly drab world - without resorting to taking pictures of flowers, leaves in fall, and sunsets.

I take way too many pictures of flowers, by the way.

So, perhaps one could make the argument that the abstraction of good color photography is no less profound (sorry) than that of black and white, it is just of a different sort. It reflects a kind of extreme selectivity.

Chris

[rdenney]

coarse or inappropriate language will not be tolerated here

man I see foul language in many threads
i usually abbreviate these words but sometimes ..we all know what they are and mean and say them ..most of us say them since a very early age



Sometimes we see it, sometimes we don't. Sometimes, people complain. If you want deterministic enforcement, write a computer program to filter words, like many other forums do. We will continue to do our best to be human here, imperfect though that is. And sometimes, I let posts ride, because they indict the person who posted it far more than my deletion would. But there's a limit to what people should be expected to tolerate.

On the subject: Photographers struggle with words. I'm reminded of one trombonist who, after having been unsuccessful on the audition circuit, took a lesson from the famed Chicago Symphony tuba player and teacher Arnold Jacobs to diagnose the problem. Jacobs told him that he was far more expressive with words than with music, and he should pursue writing rather than musical performance as a profession. The fellow did, becoming a respected local journalist and columnist. So, a photographer who can perfectly describe his imperfect photographs might be in the wrong line of work, versus the photographer whose photographs are perfect but who struggles to say anything about them. I'd rather see great photographs from photographers than great artist statements. Those who do struggle with words should keep it simple, and keep it true, even if they have to acknowledge that they don't know what is true beyond that they like it.

I don't always work in black and white, but I usually do prefer the work I do in black and white, and I think I'm going to have to head back in that direction. I don't think it's because I was raised seeing black and white. I think it's like the difference between charcoals and paints. Each represents a different dimension, and the dimension I see in my black and white prints is closer to what I want to express than the dimension I see in my color prints. But sometimes the color representation is truer to the dimension I want to express, and I'm not always sure which it will be beforehand.

Adams said that color represents a superficial scenery value that is at first attractive, but that does not remain compelling. I suspect that's backed up by Maris's experience. He also said that with black and white, he has more control over the expression than with color, because changes too far from reality in color draw attention to themselves too much. I once photographed the wrought-iron cross on a grave marker at Las Trampas church on the high road from Santa Fe to Taos, using color. Adams had photographed the same cross many decades before (the photo is in Photographs of the Southwest), of course using black and white. My photo showed the black wrought iron and weathered wood as very dark against a bright (blue) sky. Adams's photo showed the sunlight reflecting from those surfaces, and the orange or red filter that he used brightened that reflected light to nearly white, while the sky went very dark. He had therefore exactly reversed the tones of the image, showing it nearly in the negative, but without drawing attention to that reversal as an effect. His bright cross against a dark sky was, to be sure, far more powerful than my dark cross against a light sky. Had I attempted to reverse those tones in color, I would have made the photo, in his words, "obviously unrealistic."

Thus, his justification for using black and white is that it gave him more expressive control without becoming obviously unrealistic.

I think that works for me, too. As soon as I try to describe the expression that control provides, I lose track of it.

Commercial work is often intended to be obviously realistic, and therefore must be in color. For commercial work, the expression of the photographer should probably be submerged well below the expression of whatever is being photographed. But sometimes commercial work more powerfully expresses the product than does color. I'm reminded of a photo that Petronio took of one of his Linhof Technikas for the camera-picture forum, and it was clearly more powerful than the usual color documentary pictures on that forum. It also expressed that the Technika was a camera for tough conditions and tough photographers--an advertising sub-text that was both appropriate and powerful.

Rick "heading over to the resignation thread right now" Denney

[Drew Wiley]

I find the trend of this discussion to be utter nonsense. Abstract art began in color. And the notion that color in nature has to look like some doofy postcard or
calendar shot merely tells me what I already know - that a lot of color nature and landscape photographers are hunting for stereotypes and have yet to learn to
perceive color. They're too busy trying to bag something kitchy and allegedly salable. Adams' didn't really understand color, though his limited color shots were better than most people give him credit for. But if he had taken time to learn to master color printing himself, he might have had a totally different opinion of it. I've had my color prints exhibited side by side with both major abstract expressionist painters and Adam's himself, and had no problem anchoring my own half of the venue. You get out what you put in.

[Jac@stafford.net]

[...] If you want deterministic enforcement, write a computer program to filter words [...]


That made me smile.

In the mid-nineties there was a listserv that attempted that. I submitted an article concerning ENTITLEMENTS which was rendered as enBREASTments.

Back up the topic...

[rdenney]

That made me smile.

In the mid-nineties there was a listserv that attempted that. I submitted an article concerning EN***LEMENTS which was rendered as en******ments.

Back up the topic...

Fixed that for you.

Rick "who participates in a (European) forum that blasts the word 'outlet', because it suggests buying the subject of that forum at a discount" Denney

[Richard M. Coda]

No need to explain... just do what you love.

[barnninny]

Of course there are plenty of beautiful colors offered up by nature. Wonderful images can be made from a palettle of blue, brown and green.

Indeed. I love working with just blues and browns.

[barnninny]

I don't always work in black and white, but when I do, I drink Dos Equis.

Fixed that for you.

[adam satushek]

Fixed that for you.

Ha! Best response yet!

I have to say this has been a very amusing thread to follow.

[rdenney]

are you moderating a forum...?

Yes.

Rick "starting here" Denney

[rich815]

Yes.

Rick "starting here" Denney

Cool.

[Drew Wiley]

Now that things are predictably unraveling I'd like to address that artist's statement concept. It's analogous to all those "Mission Statements" that corporation came
up with in the 90's and now are reappearing on dull websites. It would be nice to have a single generic straightforward mission statement which applies equally to all businesses and can fit on a rubber stamp: "Our Mission Statement - to get your money". An equivalent artist's statement: "I want to be as rich and famous as
Picasso but am colorblind and tired of working at the pizza joint". Of course, that one would get redundant pretty fast and not appeal to anyway handing out grants,
so I propose the following: "Hey Doood, if I git the grant, I'll donate half the proceeds to medical research" (translation: as soon as the money arrives, half of it will
be spent on medicinal pot. This two simple options should cover 98% of artistes who think they deserve public funding.

[paulr]

I think it's a tired idea and also an illogical one.

Why does more abstract equal more profound? If there's a case to be made here ... good luck. I'd sure like to read it such a case if it were arguable.

I'd rather you think hard about what you prefer about black and white. Throw out the universal truths (they're rarely interesting, and rarely true), and figure out what the personal draw is.

[Armin Seeholzer]

Personally I groan when I read 99% of artist's statements. Just let your work speak for you.

+1 actually I run as far as I can if I see a statement in words, your pictures tell the story!!!!!!!!

Cheers Armin

[sanking]

Throw out the universal truths (they're rarely interesting, and rarely true), and figure out what the personal draw is.

OK, what I really like about B&W (monochrome) is that it does not in any way remind me of a picture of a breakfast platter on which has been placed a yellowish/orange omelette, covered with a thick layer of ketchup, some really saturated green peas on the side, and a few slices of Canadian bacon still soaking in oil.

Sandy

[Heroique]

OK, what I really like about B&W (monochrome) is that it does not in any way remind me of a picture of a breakfast platter on which has been placed a yellowish/orange omelette, covered with a thick layer of ketchup, some really saturated green peas on the side, and a few slices of Canadian bacon still soaking in oil.

Well, if breakfast platters are more profound or more abstract in b/w (and they may very well be), then “Green Eggs and Ham” has us all fooled, children and adults alike. :(

[Drew Wiley]

So Sandy, you're suggesting that the only kinds of hues which can be used in a photograph have to resemble food coloring dyes used by burger franchises? Nothing
subtle exists in the world unless one is colorblind?? Are if you are, how would you even know unless someone told you. Most color photographers don't know the
difference between color and noise. And in terms of taste, piling up honey and jam atop sugar cubes does not make food taste richer - it either makes your taste
buds numb or makes you vomit. But this doesn't mean effective cuisine is bland either.

[sanking]

Most color photographers don't know the
difference between color and noise.

Drew,

Is that really so?

Sandy

[Preston]

Drew,

Is that really so?

Sandy

I would ask the same question, Drew.

--P

[tgtaylor]

Interesting again. He was not a vet right? Something he got from vets he researched the film with perhaps.

BTW, thank you for your service.

Thank you. If only people with that sentiment were there in '68.

I don't think Eastwood was a veteran but he certainly came to an understanding that few have. Was he being "profound"? I don't think so. I think that he was being a damn good photographer, well in his case a cinematographer, working at a level which few ever reach. Many, if not all, of the reviewers of the time got it completely wrong with some even suggesting that he was trying to re- create a "Movietone News Reel" atmosphere.

Thomas

[Bill Burk]

My teenage son finished a portfolio's worth of drawings and wanted to show me before he emptied out the portfolio to start over...

In him I saw some of the difficulty communicating what he'd done and why, similar to what I feel when I try to explain as I show things in my portfolio...

I appreciated it on the level that I know what went into his art is more than what comes out in his words.

I see the need to have a talking point - but not if it were memorized or rote. It may not be that important what words you say, but that what you say can be understood by the person you are talking to.

[John Olsen]

I choose B&W because the super-saturated Photoshop colors are just cheap thrills, easily within the reach of anyone with a computer. I don't want to compete against the instant art of the hordes with Bangalore software. Creating an effective and interesting B&W image is more of a satisfying challenge, having disposed of distracting colors. (I'll admit, nevertheless, to admiration for people who can work with subtle colors, as in Meyerwitz's Cape Cod series.) I think Kirk's statement is a good place to start a discussion.

[Sal Santamaura]

...I don't think Eastwood was a veteran...From http://www.military.com/education/gi-bill/clint-eastwood-used-gi-bill.html:


"Drafted into the Army during the war in Korea, Eastwood was sent to Ft. Ord in California for basic training. He lucked into a job as a swimming instructor and remained at Ft. Ord. He worked nights and weekends as a bouncer at the NCO club.

On a trip home to Seattle to visit his parents and girlfriend, Eastwood caught a ride aboard a Navy plane at Moffett Field. On the ride back aboard a Navy torpedo bomber, the plane developed engine trouble and was forced to make a water landing off San Francisco. Eastwood was forced to swim over a mile through the tide to shore.

It was while on duty at Ft. Ord that Eastwood met fellow soldiers and actors Martin Milner ("Route 66"), David Janssen ("The Fugitive"), and Richard Long ("The Big Valley").

After his discharge in 1953, Eastwood attended L.A. City College and studied drama under the GI Bill."

[Jac@stafford.net]

I think it's a tired idea and also an illogical one.

Why does more abstract equal more profound? If there's a case to be made here ... good luck. I'd sure like to read it such a case if it were arguable

I think I have a sense of what Kirk was addressing. Take it to another level with the following quote from the critic Robert Hughes, "The camera, if it’s lucky, may tell a different truth to drawing – but not a truer one. Drawing brings us into a different, a deeper and more fully experienced relation to the object."

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah, Sandy..... but realistically I think I'm understating it. I'll start a pretty good food fight if I said what I really think. Just the tenor of this thread is evidence
of what I'm implying. I love black and white photography myself, but as an media independent of color. I can go back and forth between both with no problem
whatsoever, and can visualize and print in both modes. And I love both. Saturation versus non saturation has nothing to do with it. You've no doubt often heard
or perhaps even yourself preached the axiom that it's not a indicator of skill who can hit the DMax or Dmin in a print, but who can make the midtones effective in relation to the bookends. Similarly, in color photography it's not about being able to bag highly saturated primaries, but about modulating the neutrals in such a manner that everything else sings.

[Kirk Gittings]

I think I have a sense of what Kirk was addressing. Take it to another level with the following quote from the critic Robert Hughes, "The camera, if it’s lucky, may tell a different truth to drawing – but not a truer one. Drawing brings us into a different, a deeper and more fully experienced relation to the object."

I may be biased because all my personal work is in b&w and all my commercial work is in color. There is a huge chasm in my mind between the two and perhaps that colors (:)) my thinking.

[Bill Burk]

I choose B&W because the super-saturated Photoshop colors are just cheap thrills, easily within the reach of anyone with a computer. I don't want to compete against the instant art of the hordes with Bangalore software. Creating an effective and interesting B&W image is more of a satisfying challenge, having disposed of distracting colors. (I'll admit, nevertheless, to admiration for people who can work with subtle colors, as in Meyerwitz's Cape Cod series.) I think Kirk's statement is a good place to start a discussion.

I've found a lot more clarity in my determination to shoot black and white, when I started to appreciate strong color being done consistently by a 3rd-generation landscape photographer who works digitally. I was introduced to him here by following a thread about old desert photographers. It is fine that he is pursuing state-of-the-art in that direction. It is not a direction I want to go - but somebody needs to.

So I am more comfortable saying I prefer black and white for where I want to go - and what I want to get good at. Than saying anything is wrong about color.

[paulr]

OK, what I really like about B&W (monochrome) is that it does not in any way remind me of a picture of a breakfast platter on which has been placed a yellowish/orange omelette, covered with a thick layer of ketchup, some really saturated green peas on the side, and a few slices of Canadian bacon still soaking in oil.


But what if it reminds you of an old weathered barn door, with peeling paint and rusty hardware, its many shades of gray set off by the raking sunlight?

[bob carnie]

96128

I have started a whole adventure down a wormhole of colour solarization, end prints to be large inkjets and small print tricolour gum or carbon.
I have started to photograph all my objects with solarization as the common bond but select subject matter based on how I feel the object will look in final print.
I believe these colours have a nice pallete and compliment my black white work.

[Sal Santamaura]

...I started to appreciate strong color being done consistently by a 3rd-generation landscape photographer who works digitally...That is, Marc:


http://www.muenchphotography.com/


...It is not a direction I want to go - but somebody needs to...In my opinion, neither he nor anyone else really "needs to." Mazlow be damned. :D


...I am more comfortable saying I prefer black and white for where I want to go - and what I want to get good at...I think that's a much better approach, and one Kirk ought to take if/when the question comes up. As with other aspects of "art," when all is said and done things always boil down to "I like it" or "I don't like it." This applies equally to an observer viewing a finished work and Kirk selecting a medium in which to create his work.

[Drew Wiley]

Bingo, Sal.... thanks for reminding me of one more reason Fauxtoshop should be banned from the face of the actual earth.

[marfa boomboom tx]

96128

I have started a whole adventure down a wormhole of colour solarization, end prints to be large inkjets and small print tricolour gum or carbon.
I have started to photograph all my objects with solarization as the common bond but select subject matter based on how I feel the object will look in final print.
I believe these colours have a nice pallete and compliment my black white work.

are these solarized film? prints? (chemical) OR, done in digital post?

welcome to oz

[Drew Wiley]

I just hope they're riper and sweeter than the early season nectarines my wife packed in my lunch.

[hoffner]

...

I think that's a much better approach, and one Kirk ought to take if/when the question comes up. As with other aspects of "art," when all is said and done things always boil down to "I like it" or "I don't like it." This applies equally to an observer viewing a finished work and Kirk selecting a medium in which to create his work.

Really? So liking it or not is what makes art, in your opinion? Well, people like mashed potatoes too, does it make art? If it boils down to like it or not, then what is all that fuss about with the OP? Does he like B&W more than color? Hmm.

[Drew Wiley]

The universe has an incredible range of hues in it. I don't know why photographers think they are compelled to smack the viewer in the face with the same colors as
Bozo the Clown chooses for both his costume and the pie filling itself. If I was a guru who sat cross-legged on a bamboo mat, the first thing I'd tell any aspiring
color photographer is to burn every calendar, coffee-table book, and postcard in your possession. Then smash your computer, burn the software, and toss your
camera phone in a canal. Trash your TV. Even burn your camera and film (or lock it up if you can't afford to rebuy it). Then go live with the Australian aborigines or
on some remote dusty ranch for a few years. Just look,look,look .... look at the light every direction, every time of day. Look at every weed and brushpile you never noticed before, season after season. Live. Then just maybe you'll start to perceive how beautiful and complex the world is.

[hoffner]

And I would say, seeing colors requires a great deal of abstraction and even certain depth in oneself. If not, you just see forms.

[rdenney]

Really? So liking it or not is what makes art, in your opinion? Well, people like mashed potatoes too, does it make art? If it boils down to like it or not, then what is all that fuss about with the OP? Does he like B&W more than color? Hmm.

Dear Hoffner: Lose the 'tude. This conversation is all in good faith. We are all friends here, right?

But all art comes down to what we like in the end. I like mashed potatoes, but I don't like them in art (Close Encounters of the Third Kind proved that mashed potatoes lacked sufficient structural integrity for sculpture, for example). I don't define it as art in the first place.

If we define art as any expression made with the intention of being art (and this is as useful a definition as any), which mashed potatoes are not, then we can say we prefer using black and white because it carries out our intention, which we do not further attempt to explain. (This was my earlier suggestion based on what Adams said.)

If we define art (as C. S. Lewis did) as any expression that is sincerely received as art (by an art lover--Lewis was complaining that critics didn't seem to love the art they critiqued), which mashed potatoes are unlikely to be, then the artist can say he uses black and white because that's what he prefers to look at.

If we define art on the basis of what is generally accepted as art by those whose job it is to make such declarations (which is another way of saying that there is canon of art that is used to define art), then we as artists could say that we use black and white because we think it's more accepted as artistic by important canon-defining critics who view it. But that's likely to seem cynical and self-serving, even though it may not be--we as artists are also influenced by the canon.

But we weren't defining art, and so whether mashed potatoes are art does not offer the counterpoint you hoped. The discussion is about how we might express our preference for black and white photographic art compared to color photographic art, if that is indeed our preference, in a way that is honest and meaningful.

Rick "who prefers the mashed potatoes with gravy" Denney

[Drew Wiley]

Well Rick, I once baked a pie that required a hacksaw to cut the crust. So I guess I would be capable of making a permanent sculpture out of mashed potatoes!

[Sal Santamaura]

Rick, thanks for that well-reasoned response you posted while I was actually shooting (Delta 100 :) ) with the Compact II instead of being here. The only other point to make is that, in post #148, there are quotes around "art" because I consider all attempts at defining it futile and doomed to failure.

[Tin Can]

Not art

[Struan Gray]

I've been musing on this (ruminating and burping, mostly) for a few days.

1) I am always surprised by the exclusivity of the little clubs people like to create for themselves and the pictures they make. Kirk was pretty clear that he was talking about a personal motivation, but we quickly iterated to universal truths. My experience is that I can learn much from creativity which is very unlike my own.

2) Apropos that, the motivations of those who developed what is now seen as canonical abstract art were often very different from the motivations of those who look at and appreciate that art today. What is often seen as dry and formal was created in a mood bursting with spirituality. There's a nice article here: http://www.thesmartset.com/article/article02041301.aspx. With this quote:

"It is evident therefore that colour harmony must rest only on a corresponding vibration in the human soul." - Kandinsky

3) Kandinsky is a case study of my point in 1). I can't relate to his messy composition and wobbly sense of line, but I absolutely love the subtlety of his colours. Many of his contemporaries were painting with equally strong colour, but Kandinsky is fabulous for shading and mixing those colours while retaining their vibrancy. Only Klee comes close.

4) So most of my inspiration in colour comes from painters. There are photographers who handle strong colour very well, and whom I admire (David Maisel is one I mentioned, but here's a link (http://www.davidmaisel.com/works/works_2009.asp) to make you look). But most of my inspiration from those who make photographs comes from people who work in monochrome. That may mean that the sort of photographs I want to make myself are impossible, but I keep trying.

[hoffner]

I find the trend of this discussion to be utter nonsense. Abstract art began in color. And the notion that color in nature has to look like some doofy postcard or
calendar shot merely tells me what I already know - that a lot of color nature and landscape photographers are hunting for stereotypes and have yet to learn to
perceive color.
-


I think it's a tired idea and also an illogical one.

Why does more abstract equal more profound? If there's a case to be made here ... good luck. I'd sure like to read it such a case if it were arguable.

I'd rather you think hard about what you prefer about black and white. Throw out the universal truths (they're rarely interesting, and rarely true), and figure out what the personal draw is.

+ 1 wholeheartedly.

[alavergh]

I choose black and white because, honestly, I have never done color and from all accounts, it's harder to get into. When I go out and photograph and it's a messy fall day and everything looks so 'blah' I don't want to photograph in color. In Indiana, I'm not motivated to do much in color. I searched a number of noted color photographers, and all I see when I look at their images are dated 70s stuff. I think the colors that you see tend to date the photography more easily that black and white does.

[Peter Gomena]

Black and white speaks to me, color talks at me.

[Doug Howk]

Color is a veil that obscures the photographers' two-dimensional vision of the world. Pull back the veil and we perceive its beauty thru luminosity.

[Drew Wiley]

Anyone who thinks "that" about color has yet to perceive color. "Colorful" and color are not the same thing, even though most photographers can't seem to understand that distinction.

[Tin Can]

I agree with this, most 'color' is jarring to my sense.


Black and white speaks to me, color talks at me.

[Drew Wiley]

Gosh. Too bad Manet isn't still alive. He might have an interesting reaction to the alleged inability of color to render two-dimensional luminosity. Probably would have
pulled out a pistol if he was inebriated with absinthe. I do love working in black and white for what it can do, but I equally love color (my wallet is not so balanced
in preference, however). If I live long enough, one of my goals is to help people appreciate the color of the world in ways they would have never seen before. The
other day, a lifetime outdoorsman encounters me on the trail. The drought has out all the extraordinarily delicate clay and greige colors, unobscured by grass. This
fellow knew I was using an 8x10 but couldn't figure out why. So, having already taken my shot, I started showing him what I saw in the scene. He remarked that he had hiked this very trail twice a week for the past twenty years and had never noticed that... but now that I had pointed it out, it did seem incredible to him. The average nature photographer wouldn't have seen anything either. One of my favorite old quotes is that "most photographers confuse color with noise". Maybe
that's why you don't respond to it.

[Tin Can]

I don't print color, either digitally or analog, what jars me is some 'vivid' color images, my digital cam can produce and exhibit on my calibrated monitor. Simply not my cup of tea.

As for outdoorsy, I spent my youth in the North woods and return as possible. One fellow I have read, maintains there is a (nearly) infinite amount of life in any square yard of earth, perhaps the universe.

Drew, your backyard sounds magnificent, but so is all life.

[Drew Wiley]

Shooting-wise, I can instantly switch between color and black-and-white, without any quality compromise whatsoever. In terms of darkroom time, however, it's simply not practical to do both at the same time. But in terms of attitude toward the discipline, I put just as much heart into each. Health-wise, I now restrict my
color printing considerably, since I'm allergic to RA4 chem and must carefully limit my exposure to it. In fact, I take my processing drums outdoors for the actual chemical steps, during mild weather. What matters with color is not a "saturated" versus "bland" palette, but the complex relationships between colors. What I personally hate is when photographers simply add honey and jam to sugar cubes, or conversely, when "art" photographers just try to artsyfry everything by doing
just the opposite. Both amount to visual illiteracy, in my opinion. The digital age has only made things worse. People need to stop and LOOK. ... too many are just
in a hurry to get a colorful marketable commodity - a stereotype of beauty, and miss the real thing. Or else they are distracted by the instant "gotcha" mentality
of advertising photographer - grab your attention fast, even though two days later the image gets boring. This latter flaw seems to have particularly infected the
academic art world of the moment. Not all beauty is instantly accessed.

[Peter Gomena]

It's not that I don't appreciate good color work. I love painting, and movies, and good color photography and other color media. I use color film in a ratio of about 1 roll or sheet to a dozen black-and-white rolls or sheets. I worked with color film for a dozen years in the commercial world. It's just not my preference for personal work about 90% of the time.