[Leica] Barcelona in color

[lrzeitlin at gmail.com (Lawrence Zeitlin)]

Nathan,

Not trolling at all. I was just curious. Many of the pictures that you post
in and around Alicante are about people too, yet you usually shoot in color.
I reject Dr. Ted's pat aphorism that when you photograph people in color,
you photograph their clothes but when you shoot B&W you photograph their
soul. Color merely adds an extra creative dimension. Used wisely it enhances
an image. Ask Rembrant, Bonnard, Matisse, Van Gogh or any of their crowd.
Even the 10,000 year old cave drawings used color. Photographers developed a
B&W fetish because color was technically difficult to use for more than half
of photography's history. Imagine Matthew Brady's problem trying to
photograph the US Civil war in color using the wet collodion process. If B&W
was esthetically superior, charcoal drawings would predominate in fine art.

Besides, I'm cheap enough to feel that I've wasted my money if I shoot B&W
pictures using a digital camera capable of taking beautiful color images.
With film and paper prints it was a different story.

Larry Z

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Lluis,

I just had the opportunity to watch a TV travelog about Barcelona. The show

"Globe Trekker" is a British product but is regularly shown on U.S. Public

TV stations. I've never been to Barcelona but it appears to be a lovely and

colorful city. I admire your photos of Barcelona scenes but I have a

question. In such a colorful environment why do you usually shoot in B&W?

You might as well be photographing in much less colorful New York or in Jim

Shulman's drab Philadelphia.

Larry Z

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Hi Larry,

I don't think you are trolling, and I am not Lluis, but I have been to
Barcelona several times, and have indeed been together with Lluis taking
pictures. Since most of his pictures are about people or
light/shadow/composition, B&W is an appropriate medium. Barcelona is
colorful, but I would not call Philadelphia "drab" either--during the first
half of 90s I frequently drove down there from NJ and found it lively and
attractive.

Cheers,

Nathan