Re: [Leica] b&w, color of the soul (was: Old colour film stock and back to pictures.)

[Alan Ball <AlanBall@csi.com>]

The case for b&w is very interesting. I would like to contradict it a
little: I find b&w is in danger of becoming a gimmick, a little like the
overusage of polarizers in outdoor photography in the eighties or of
soft filters in the seventies. The renewed success of b&w in photography
(movies, advertisement, photojournalism) could be partly due to the fact
that we are so oversaturated with super explosive colour images that the
very absence of colour has become a pure marketing means of attracting
the viewer's attention. It could also be partly due to the recurent
effort to cash on prefab nostalgia.

Grayscale avoids dealing with the clash of colours or the emotions
derived from certain combinations of colours. I use b&w for my
snapshots: flash becomes more acceptable, contrast problems are less of
a nuisance, etc. So, I believe it is liable to become a cop-out rather
than a medium "conveying color the soul rather than the color of the
clothes" (to paraphrase Noel in another post).

I would therefore partly agree with Paul but I'd tweak his statement by
saying "it is easier to make what looks like a great picture in b&w". I
think really great pictures are independent of bit depth requirements,
they are "great pictures" because they are felt as "great" in the format
the photographers delivered them. Some do that with colours and some do
it without colours....

Friendly regards
Alan
Brussels-Belgium.

 

pchefurka@plaintree.com wrote:
> 
> 
> One of my aphorisms is that it's easier to make a good picture in
> colour, but it's easier to make a great picture in B&W.
> 
> Great pictures, to my mind, require some degree of abstraction. B&W
> gives you an automatic advantage because it provides one immediate level
> of abstraction - by removing the colour that can make a picture too
> representational.
> 
> For people, this seems to make their character more apparent, as the
> sense of their realistic appearance is subdued - it becomes less a
> picture "of" a person and more a picture "about" that person.
> 
> Paul
> 
> ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
> 
> Alan Sircom wrote:
> 
> > So, why do most people shots - either street or protraiture - look
> > better in B&W rather than colour? Is it too much HCB in my diet
> > affecting my tastes or is there a more rational reason. Or is most
> > colour work crap?
> 
> I think it has to do with the fact that B&W, by removing the colour
> element, focuses the viewer's attention on the essential elements of
> composition and light. Most people are not that colourful anyway, certainly
> not compared to flowers, animals etc.
> 
> Nathan