Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/02/15

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Subject: Re: [Leica] B&W and forever the iconoclast
From: Eric Welch <ewelch@ponyexpress.net>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 22:25:57 -0600

At 06:23 PM 2/15/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Gosh, those modern fools
>like Galen Rowell, Annie Leibovitz, et al  they should know better than to
>use color slide film.

Annie does black and white, sometimes.

Ted, who needs no defense, uses color.

But to take the devil's advocate (I prefer color for much of what I do) the 
judges for the most prestigious newspaper photojournalism contest - 
Pictures of the Year (which ranks higher in newspapers than the Pulitzer 
itself according to Rich Clarkson, former dir. of photo at National 
Geographic, and Pulitzer judge himself), last year the five top newspaper 
portfolios were all black and white. Well, there was one color story by one 
of the guys who won honorable mention.

The judges commented on that fact. Saying that much of the best work they 
saw this year was black and white. That pretty much indicates that black 
and white is alive and well in photojournalism. It should be noted those 
five photographers' work is still printed black and white. Which may have 
something to do with it since they think black and white when they shoot, 
even though for several years they've shot color negative. They were all 
from the Washington Post. First time in the 50+ years of the contest the 
portfolio category was swept by one paper. It will be interesting to see 
how they do next year now that the Post is color.

Actually, I think the judges were trying to make a statement, and ignoring 
the fact as well that newspaper photographers can't always take the time to 
look for the best light. But then, maybe in those situations, black and 
white might be the best choice. I can think of one picture story from the 
past year where I could have run black and white that would have 
strengthened it. That's because the light was so horrible. Except for one 
photo - the steaming horse and cowboy picture on my web site (now inside 
since it got bumped by a picture from Victoria B.C.).

Eric Welch
St. Joseph, MO
http://www.ponyexpress.net/~ewelch

Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity.