The Impact of Black and White

[Ben Chase]

I'm sure this topic has been discussed in the past, but I couldn't help but comment (perhaps on the obvious) about how different of an effect that something photographed in black and white has than something photographed in color.

With regard to landscape photography - there's Ansel Adams, and what more could one possibly say about that which hasn't already been said.

Recently, I was on a fishing outing with my my father, brother, and uncle for an entire week. Aside from the fact that putting 4 guys on a boat for a week with beer, scotch, and sarcasm is just asking for trouble - I noticed that almost all of the good portrait-style photographs I took of my family were with black and white film. I discarded almost everything I took in color.

Does this happen to anyone else when taking pictures of people? Portrait photos in B/W to me, tell a story that is significantly different than portrait photos taken in color. I'm not sure I can explain this very logically - it almost seems like the portraits taken in color are too distracting, taking away from what you're trying to show. With well-exposed black and white film, to me, it seems like there is no mystery about what the subject matter is, nor the story you're trying to tell with the photograph.

Does this make any sense to anyone, or have I lost my mind?

Ben C

[Capocheny]

Hi Ben,

I've seen GREAT images made in both mediums... color AND B&W.

However, some subjects may suit one medium over the other. Whether this is true or not will depend on personal tastes.

Some shooters use color film exclusively; others use B&W.

YMMV

Cheers

[John Kasaian]

WHile I agree with Capocheny, I also prefer B&W. I think B&W photographs have a certain dignity about them. Exactly why I feel this way is hard to put a finger on. A beautiful color landscape is indeed a glorious thing and a color portrait is far more life like, but B&W I think asks something from the viewer's imagination that color does not.

Maybe the elusive difference is a little like this:

Color is motion picture soundtrack of heroic scope in Dolby played by a symphony orchestra.

B&W is the wailing of an unseen saxman busking on a street corner a block away.

[domenico Foschi]

WHile I agree with Capocheny, I also prefer B&W. I think B&W photographs have a certain dignity about them. Exactly why I feel this way is hard to put a finger on. A beautiful color landscape is indeed a glorious thing and a color portrait is far more life like, but B&W I think asks something from the viewer's imagination that color does not.

Maybe the elusive difference is a little like this:

Color is motion picture soundtrack of heroic scope in Dolby played by a symphony orchestra.

B&W is the wailing of an unseen saxman busking on a street corner a block away.

Nicely put, John.

[John Kasaian]

Thank you, Domenico!

Cheers!

[Struan Gray]

For me, one problem is that 'colour' so often means LEGO colour: the spectral primaries of childrens' toys and learn-your-colours-and-numbers books. Red. Green. Blue. Yellow. It's so overused by commercial interests that it becomes hard to see or use with any subtlety.

I like, and have been trying to make, photographs that use what I think of as a secondary palette. Purples, aquamarines and that greeny-yellow you get as leaves just start to turn. Josef Albers got there a long time ago, but it's interesting how little the photographic world has chosen to follow him.

That said, in today's colour-saturated world B+W seems to have a sense of authority with laypeople that colour lacks. When I show non-photographers my prints they are much more ready to take the monochrome ones seriously as acts of creation. Colour shots are appreciated, but my role is relegated to that of an observer. I can live with the shame.

[Doug Howk]

Its like Judy Garland's Wizard of Oz: reality is the B&W (or actually sepia toned) portions whereas color is the fantasyland. If you want to see the essence of a subject - its reality, view a Weston print. Color is the Madison Avenue, camouflaged version of a subject seen in magazine ads.

[Bill_1856]

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

[Ted Harris]

Lot's of good points. I am especially taken by Struan's. Those of us, like Struan and I, that live in the 'frozen North, are often presented with hauntingly beautiful images in the secondary palette. Often images that approach monochromatic with the exception of a small spot or blush of color, usually a subtle pastel, in the image. Difficult, very difficult to capture and outstanding when done well.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are images which use strong color to convey meaning. The examples that come most readily to mind are many of Chris Jordan's images. Chris .... are you reading ... want to chime in here?

[Robert McClure]

Ben,

For me, black & white gets at essence of a scene. Color can tend to inform me of what is there (in a photograph), but thus saves me the trouble of more deeply experiencing something of the nature of the raw material in a scene. Black & white can to redeem the plastic beauty of the material that is really there. Some might say that the truth or the real beauty lies in the plasticity. If I am going to choose a particular piece of reality to pull out of its context to then examine, I prefer that it be boiled down to essence, to simplest elements, for purposes of that examination.

All of those very subjective comments made, I have seen color work where color is "used" carefully or sparingly. The result, for me, is that the color of the material and the material itself emerge in their (more or less) essence. I mean, color is also worth exploring.

A full color scene with a lot of color and photographed, more or less, naturally, strikes some as "garish" (which I think was the word Walker Evans used to describe any color photography). Evans and others, I think, have gotten so used to solely black & white that, for them, it's like being used to the subtle sweetness of fresh broccoli and then eating a Hershey Bar.

I don't mind chocolate bars. It's just that I am, by nature, an explorer and discoverer. Boiling down an image to shades of gray, for me, allows me to do exploration far more easily. Beauty, also then, can seem to more easily emerge.

Robert McClure

[Doug Howk]

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

[Bill_1856]

I have yet to see an exceptional, desaturated image.

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

[Steve J Murray]

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

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

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

[Jim Galli]

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

[SAShruby]

Ben,

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

[Bill_1856]

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

[j.e.simmons]

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

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

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

[paulr]

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

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

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

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

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

[Marko]

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

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

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

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

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

[Ben Chase]

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

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

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

[John Voss]

Brooks Jensen in latest issue of Lenswork says that there is a virtual tsunami of exceptional images thanks to the ease of digital. The darkroom is no longer a barrier to creative individuals especially if they want to create color images..

I think Eastman Kodak's early 20th century exhortation to "press the button, we do the rest" is a testament to how such 'ease' of accomplishment actually plays out. Learning to 'see' is a decades long pursuit requiring discipline, education either by one's self or otherwise, critique, and an enormous amount of practice. Whether digital, hybrid, or traditional processes are employed to render a 'hard' copy of what is seen, the value and worth of the seeing is not changing exponentially or any other way. There may be a tsunami of images, but there sure isn't a tsunami of exceptional ones. Brooks, IMHO, is becoming increasingly glib and less well grounded in the reality of his observations.

As to color vs black and white; for me, color images just make the fact that I can't smell the air or feel the sun, or the warmth or chill of the air seem to highlight their limitations. With black and white, the separation of image from 'reality' is much more palpable. I find the image compelling or not, but always complete in itself. It's an interpretation, not an a priori representation.

[Michael Kadillak]

I feel that color has one more "variable" in play that needs to be carefully taken into consideration to insure that the image is "balanced" within the palate and has proper visual appeal. Composition is always absolutely critical irrespective of the selected presentation module but too much of one color and the wheels can start to come off of the wagon.

For me I have found that with B&W things visually are one dimensional and this forces the viewer to come into your methodology of expression because it is all about the image since there is nothing beyond black and white and the shades in between.

Nothing moved me more in this direction than 15 5x7 contact prints by Edward Weston at the Denver art museum viewed at arms length. I have never had this experience with any color media that I have viewed and I have seen an significant volume of good work over the years. Maybe it is just me.

Cheers!

[tim atherton]

For me, black & white gets at essence of a scene. Color can tend to inform me of what is there (in a photograph), but thus saves me the trouble of more deeply experiencing something of the nature of the raw material in a scene. Black & white can to redeem the plastic beauty of the material that is really there. Some might say that the truth or the real beauty lies in the plasticity. If I am going to choose a particular piece of reality to pull out of its context to then examine, I prefer that it be boiled down to essence, to simplest elements, for purposes of that examination.

A good example of the attitude towards colour that extends from Aristotle's "colour is merely cosmetic" through to the teacher telling you in kindergarten to "make sure you colour inside the lines. (Often conveyed in photography as "colour captures the clothes but b&w captures the soul..." ) And the line is essentially about the dominance of form - which the simplification of black and white photography emphasises and in a way also makes somewhat easy. Critics of Cezanne commented that his "error" was that he was entranced by the offers of the colour vendor (and the presumably inferior) "temptations" of the east and that while painting can't help but be made without colour, in the true and durable plastic work it is form which comes first and everything else is subordinate to it. A narrow if entrenched view essentially disproved by the genius of Cezanne and many of those who followed him.


Its like Judy Garland's Wizard of Oz: reality is the B&W (or actually sepia toned) portions whereas color is the fantasyland. If you want to see the essence of a subject - its reality, view a Weston print. Color is the Madison Avenue, camouflaged version of a subject seen in magazine ads.

Actually, in Oz B&W is the mundane – the prairie is dreary endless grey, as is Dorothy's house. Her aunt and uncle are thin, gaunt, unsmiling and - of course - grey. But Dorothy essentially falls from the world of grey into the fantastic wonder of colour. It may be a dream, but which is the more real? Of course our world itself is in colour - most obviously (and despite what many think, and the movies love the perpetuate, research has shown a majority of people actually dream in colour). Colour, not B&W is the essence of the world around us - what we photogrpah. It's beyond form and line. But it's also (apparently) inherently much harder to do well. Edward Weston said that colour was more difficult than black and white, he liked colour photography and saw very early on the challenges it posed (challenges which weren't taken up spuriously until perhaps 40 years later) but also realised he couldn't do it. Evan's only discovered colour (brilliantly) late in his career and turned his attitude towards it 180 degrees.

Most colour photographs are about colours - not about colour. There is a huge difference. Good colour is truly about the essence of the thing photographed

[Struan Gray]

http://www.artnet.de/magazine/news/schulte/schulte05-12-06_detail.asp?picnum=13

[Doug Howk]

research has shown a majority of people actually dream in colour We may dream in color but our memories are in B&W. Color is not an essential element of an object but rather part of our perception, which will vary dependent on the individual. Why don't we remember color? Because its not part of the subject's essence. Its just my viewpoint; but, with rare exception, color prints are a decorative art whereas B&W prints are a fine art. Of course, I also prefer B&W movies ;-)

[Struan Gray]

We may dream in color but our memories are in B&W. ..

...Why don't we remember color?

What we?

[Doug Howk]

Our memories (long-term autobiographical memory) trends towards shades of grey (read this somewhere). It suggests that our brain acts to filter out non-essential elements as memories are converted from short-term to long-term.

[Struan Gray]

I'm not trying to be argumentative Doug, but I'd love a reference if you can dig one up. What you say is at odds with my own personal experience, as well as anecdotal evidence from family and friends. Perhaps I live in the land of the wierd.

[Marko]

We may dream in color but our memories are in B&W. Color is not an essential element of an object but rather part of our perception, which will vary dependent on the individual. Why don't we remember color? Because its not part of the subject's essence. Its just my viewpoint; but, with rare exception, color prints are a decorative art whereas B&W prints are a fine art. Of course, I also prefer B&W movies ;-)

Preference is one thing, facts may be another. If color were indeed not essential, we as a species wouldn't see color. I have yet to see a creature with an unnceccessary sense, including humans and other apes.

[tim atherton]

Our memories (long-term autobiographical memory) trends towards shades of grey (read this somewhere). It suggests that our brain acts to filter out non-essential elements as memories are converted from short-term to long-term.

the opposite is more the case. Colour perception and memory is more elemental in humans than response to line and form.

Struan, did you ever read Chromophobia? (or any of Gages books on colour and culture?)

[tim atherton]

We may dream in color but our memories are in B&W. Color is not an essential element of an object but rather part of our perception, which will vary dependent on the individual. Why don't we remember color? Because its not part of the subject's essence. Its just my viewpoint; but, with rare exception, color prints are a decorative art whereas B&W prints are a fine art. Of course, I also prefer B&W movies ;-)

Color is not an essential element of an object but rather part of our perception, which will vary dependent on the individual.

really - how do you separate the two - is that a Volkswagen that's green? or green that happens to be a Volkswagen?

color prints are a decorative art whereas B&W prints are a fine art. Good old Aristotle again. They are only decorative when the colour hasn't been done well. Presumably a Matisse or a Picasso is only decorative as well...? That difference between colours and colour again. Photographs that are just about colours usually are "just" decoration.

[Struan Gray]

Struan, did you ever read Chromophobia? (or any of Gages books on colour and culture?)

'fraid not. Are they worth finding and reading? What little I do know is gleaned from secondary sources and long chats with a father-in-law physiologist. He recommended Helmholz' essays on vision and perception, but I have always found them unreadable.

[tim atherton]

Chromophobia is a short, fun, thought provoking read:

http://www.amazon.com/Chromophobia-FOCI-David-Batchelor/dp/1861890745/sr=1-1/qid=1164299632/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-5517673-4697717?ie=UTF8&s=books

(good short review here: http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/index/fyfe/fyfe2-13-01.asp )

gages books have lots of pictures... :-)

http://www.amazon.com/Color-Culture-Practice-Antiquity-Abstraction/dp/0520222253/sr=8-2/qid=1164299554/ref=sr_1_2/102-5517673-4697717?ie=UTF8&s=books

http://www.amazon.com/Color-Meaning-Art-Science-Symbolism/dp/0520226119/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b/102-5517673-4697717

Usually cheaper used on ABE.com

[Struan Gray]

Just what I need. More books to read. :-)

[paulr]

As far as actual practice, I stayed away from color for a long, long time, because I recognized how difficult it was to do well. 99% of the color work I saw suffered from one of two fundamental problems: color that was blatant and obvious, or color that was just decorative and inessential. All my attempts could have been described in these ways.

When I final decided to pursue a color project, I approached it by working on a smaller scale, and by taking in smaller pieces of the world around me.

Robert Adams suggests that the greatness of a work of art is in part dependent on the scope of its ambition; how many divergent elements of the world it can encomapass and reconcile, formally and metophorically. Which suggests that a piece like Picasso's Guenica reaches for much more greatness than say, a Matisse still life, even though both might be wonderful paintings.

I took on the color challenge by reaching for less greatness than I'd reached for in black and white. I contented myself with trying to do a good job on a smaller scale, with a project of limited reach. The problem was harder, so I gave my self a fighting chance by biting off a smaller piece of it. I'm happy with the way it worked out; next time I might reach a little farther.

[chris jordan]

Hi guys, interesting thread; this is an issue that I have been interested in for many years. I have come to look at B&W and color photography as being two very different mediums, and in my own opinion, neither medium shows the true "essence" of the subject any more than the other. That part depends on the photographer's ability to use the strengths and accept the limitations of the medium, whether it be B&W or color.

For example, if you imagine adding color to a great B&W photograph (say, Ansel's "Moonrise"), clearly the image would be ruined. But if you took the color away from a great color image (Andreas Gursky's Dollar Store, for example, or just about any color painting), then they would lose their essence also.

The reason I love color and use it is for this characteristic, which is color photography greatest strength as well as its most challenging limitation: there is no artistic medium that comes closer to depicting the world as we actually see it. B&W is a step removed because of the absence of color; painting is another step removed, and down at the other end of the continuum are the abstract mediums such as music and dance. But on this continuum there is no medium that fits between color photography and how se see the real world-- color photography is as close as you can get to depicting our real vision.

I think this makes color photography a more difficult medium to work in, as others here have noted. My own observation is that in most color photographs, the color ends up being superfluous. For example, I think there are a great many photographers who compose using traditional B&W non-color compositional elements such as shape, line, form, texture, etc. But they use color film, and so they end up with Ansel Adams landscapes in color, and in those images the color itself has little or no real meaning.

But there are some color photographers who train themselves to think, see, and compose in color, and in their work the color is important and carries a meaning that would be lost if that image were printed in B&W. To me it doesn't really matter if the colors are primary or secondary, or highly saturated or not; what matters is whether the color carries something of value in the image, that would be lost in its absence. There are many color photographers who work this way; Struan, Paul R. Marco, and Adrian Tyler are some guys on this forum whose work I admire for their thoughtful use of color. I'm sure there are plenty of others too; those just come to mind right now.

Happy Tryptophaning to all,

~cj

[tim atherton]

Just what I need. More books to read. :-)

Get hold of the little Batchelor book and take it from there - it's full of references you might want to pursue (like Salman Rushdie on the grey in the Wizard of Oz..., Le Corbusier drawing back from the colourful temptations of the East after he confronted the Acropolis in a fever and more!)

[Struan Gray]

Get hold of the little Batchelor book and take it from there

Aye Aye Sir. Mind you, it's a triumph of hope over experience: after I read "If on a winters night a traveller" this summer I vowed never again. :-)


Le Corbusier drawing back from the colourful temptations of the East after he confronted the Acropolis in a fever..

Tastes change. I think I'm right in saying that the original colour scheme for the Acropolis was downright garish, rather like all those pure white medieval cathedrals that once were a riot of decoration and ornament.

Incidentally, there were several medieval painters who painted in pure B+W, including Van Eyck. Then, it was felt to be a special effect, and that monochrome severely restricted the range of expression the painter could achieve. On the other hand, medieval eyes were less literal about colour and much more sensitive to allegory and symbolism.

A recommendation back at you: "Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages" by Umberto Eco. A bit dry towards the end, but I found it helpful in trying to clear my head of the Romantics.

[Dick Hilker]

When you consider that photography is a subtractive process, much like sculpture, it helps to understand why B&W seems "purer" and on a higher plane than the illustrations we're bombarded with everyday in magazines and on the web.

A sculptor starts with a piece of rock and removes everything that doesn't look like the vision of his subject. We start with a 3-D subject, reduce it to 2-D. transform its color and tonality, perhaps interpret various elements in the darkroom or Photoshop until the image matches our vision of the subject.

In each instance, the artist refines reality until it best represents his emotional and aesthetic interpretation of it. Since B&W takes that refinement further than color, perhaps that's why we react to it differently.

[John Kasaian]

I think this demonstrates what slaves to fashion the art world is. In the beginning, monochrome prints were (grudgingly) thought to trump color painting, then color photography trumped B&W, then ultra saturated color trumped color. With each changing of the guard, the previous "chrome" held the conservative high ground of what is seen as a plateau of "fine" art.

Baloney!

Shoot with whichever materials you enjoy working with and looking at :)

[paulr]

We've inherited a lot of rhetoric (much of which predates photography) about whether color is more or less pure, more or less essential that black and white. It can lead to some interesting debates, but i'm now sure it's so useful.

What we know is that photography abstracts images from the world, and that black and white abstracts more than color does. Which is better, or more pure, or more essential, is going to depend on your own vision and dispositions.

The argument really boils down to "more abstract is better" vs. "less abstract is better." The history of art shows us this is an unending and unwinnable one. The opposing factions take turns being in fashion as the centuries roll on, but that's as close winning as anyone ever comes.

For me, starting to work in color had nothing to do with philosophy or thinking one way of seeing is better than another. I just found myself getting attracted to scenes that needed to be photographed in color. This was an inconvenience (I didn't know how to do it) but I decided it was worth it to try indulging. There's still a pile of black and white film in the fridge for when I start seeing other kinds of things.