[Leica] Daved and confused

[philippe.amard at tele2.fr (Philippe AMARD)]

Hi Dave,
I understand your qualms.
In many ways, your own brains decide. BW or colour, who cares so long as 
you still decide what pleases you better.
Yet, everything starts with visualisation; light, shapes, people, 
places, etc - the rest is only technology, i.e. immaterial and can be 
changed, at any time.
It also ends up with you, you seeing what has come of your endeavour, 
and often another person visualising your end product - and this is also 
what matters.
I am unsure the subject can be tackled differently, in photographic 
terms I mean.
So no qualms - visualise, shoot, make the most of the neg/file/0 and1s 
to your taste, and please our eyes with beautiful never seen before, and 
never to be seen again photographs.
Bien amicalement.
Philippe

David Rodgers wrote:

>Perhaps this is too deep a subject for a shallow mind such as mine, but
>when I first learned photography I was taught that visualization -- the
>process of imagining the final print before snapping the shutter -- was
>essential to good photography. It was difficult, but made a little
>easier because your scope of visualization was more narrow. For
>instance, you were pretty much locked into the type of film you were
>using. 
>
>Certainly you could cross over from BW to color using Marshall Oils or
>the opposite direction using Panalure, but how common was it to do so? I
>think I used Marshall Oils one time and I still have leftovers from my
>first and only box of Panalure. 
>
>Now we can switch back and forth -- and I do it often, from color to BW
>and back, at least -- with a mouse click. Since nearly all digital
>begins in color (I'm not diciplined enough to shoot in monochrome mode)
>it's almost like I'm admitting defeat when I determine that an image
>can't make it as a color image so I try and dress it up a little in BW. 
>
>Thus when I shoot digital I feel like I'm a color photographer who uses
>BW -- aka zero saturation -- as a crutch to make bad photos that have
>some compositional merit but are colorly challenged, into mediocre
>photos; sometimes even really good BW photos, if I'm lucky. I can even
>hide unwanted artifacts....even noise.
>
>Has happenstance replaced visualization? Is this even something worth
>discussing? WWAS? (What would Ansel say?) Was visualization merely a
>fancy metaphore for "you're stuck with what's in your camera, so make
>the most of it".
>
>There was a day when I'd have given my eye teeth to have someone come up
>to me and offer a magic film that could be either color or BW at the
>snap of my finger. After all, visualization was a tough thing for me to
>grasp. Sadly, now that I'm an old dog I can't ungrasp it. I'm conflicted
>and confused. What's that old saying? Careful what you wish for..... 
>
>DaveR 
>
>
>
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