Re: [Leica] B&W / Color

[Essai2 <AlanBall@csi.com>]

Jim Brick wrote:

> The bottom line to this story... B&W photography is immensely more
> difficult than color. ....<CUT>...
> 
> Many of my large Cibachromes are simply photographs of nice landscapes.
> People really like them...<CUT>...
> 
> Maybe I'm just dumber than the average photographer??? But good color just
> happens. Good B&W is a hellova lot of work! And even after one hellova lot
> of sweat and work, the result might still be only mediocre.
> 
> Take two cameras, one with color, the other with B&W. Take the exact same
> photographs with both. Print both color and B&W prints (8x10 or better).
> Typically, more color photographs work than B&W, simply because of the
> color. After taking the photograph, most of the color work is done. The B&W
> work has just begun.


I do not agree at all. IMHO, the fact that a picture works well in
grayscale rather than in colour or vice versa is very much related to
the subject. A good grayscale portrait is "easier" to obtain than a good
colour portrait. A good grayscale landscape is often more "difficult" to
obtain than a good colour landscape, etc. 

What you describe is very high end b/w processing (from the rating of
the emulsion at exposure moment and zone system exposure settings to the
rating of paper, passing by the development parameters). To get
equivalent quality in colour, one has to work just as hard, if not
harder. To get the best print out of most slides, one needs to go
through hand masked cibachrome processing, and the contrast range
captured on the slide remains of paramount importance. The processing of
colour stock (negatives, slides, prints) is much harder to achieve in
amateur lab conditions. With grayscale and a little training, you can
get consistently 'good' results with much fewer constraints. That does
not mean anyone can easily obtain 'Ansel Adams' grayscales, of course.

Furthermore, colour adds complexity to the scene (what the b/w fans call
the 'colour of the clothes rather than the colour of the soul'). That
complexity must be taken into account at all stages of the process: how
will these colours render with such or such emulsion and lens ? what
feeling will these colours convey ? how do these colours interact with
each other ? what is the influence of all those colours in the blurred
background on the mood of the image ? 

Grayscale OTOH strips that complexity away and reduces it to a number of
levels of gray. Once the photographer knows how to 'see' gray levels in
a scene, he gets rid of a lot of complicated parameters. He makes his
life easier.

Okay, I'm being a bit provocative here, as usual, but I really find
grayscale is not that much more than a Photoshop setting, like many
others. It is a photographic media rooted in the history of photography.
To use it today has a lot to do with 'paying dues' to the masters of the
past and to tradition. It is also not indifferent to fashion cycles.
There is nothing wrong with that. I personally use it (400 CN, which is
not as glamourous as Tri-X) for P&S activities mainly: no red eyes, no
clash between the mess on the table and the faces of the not too fresh
friends, extremely high exposure tolerances. Grayscale makes it easier
to obtain shareable P&S images...

Alan.