Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/12/12

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Subject: [Leica] Color vs B&W
From: jon.streeter at cox.net (jon.streeter)
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:18:08 -0800

Reasonable artists may differ.

Emmanuel makes a compelling case.

If the ability to create color photographs had existed right from the start, 
would we even have black and white?  We can't routinely make realistic 
representations of reality, that is, indistinguishable from reality.  If 
that day comes, what argument will then engage the passions of the artists?

The human eye can distinguish perhaps six million colors, many more than we 
can name, but most of which most of us are aware of.  Color photography, if 
you will pardon the expression, is still developing, and it's obvious to all 
that the colors in photographs do not match what we see when we look at the 
world around us.   However, it's conceivable -- conceivable, mind you -- 
that the day may come when color photographs are so accurate in color 
rendition and lush with dynamic range, possibly even appearing in 3D without 
any apparatus, that viewers will have to struggle to tear their eyes away 
from them, and black and white as an art form will come to be regarded as 
pass?, merely a relic of days gone by, and  fall into a state of desuetude.  

"Daddy, what's wrong with THIS picture?" 

"Oh, nothing, sweetie pie.   It's supposed to look that way.  It's called 
black and white.  Some people even used to think they were better than 3D 
color."

"Really?  You're teasing me again, aren't you, Daddy."

Sent from my Verizon Wireless Phone

----- Reply message -----
From: "Steve Barbour" <steve.barbour at gmail.com>
To: "Leica Users Group" <lug at leica-users.org>
Subject: [Leica] Color vs B&W
Date: Wed, Dec 12, 2012 8:29 am



On Dec 12, 2012, at 8:00 AM, <tedgrant at shaw.ca> wrote:

> Not worth responding to this post when the poster can't even get the 
> original quotation correct and understand the meaning after all the years 
> it as been around the world and back. Pity!
> 
> thank you.
> Dr. ted.
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "EPL" <manolito at videotron.ca>
> To: <lug at leica-users.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2012 8:51 PM
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Color vs B&W
> 
> 
>> This line that "colour shows the soul/spirit" while B&W shows folk's
>> clothing has always struck me as the opinion of an idiot clod.
>> 
>> Since before time immemorial, people have chosen the clothes they wear.




occurs to me this concerns how they want to be seen, not how they are.



Steve



>> 
>> They do not choose their "souls," neither do they choose the colour of 
>> their
>> skin nor the colour of their eyes or their hair (although the latter is
>> easily altered).
>> 
>> The clothes & adornments people choose to wear constitute a very telling 
>> and
>> intimate expression of their personality, their self-image, their place 
>> (in
>> their mind's choices) in this world, within their particular culture and
>> time.
>> 
>> Would any of us see Marilyn Monroe as a green-eyed red-head, not the blond
>> she CHOSE to be?
>> 
>> There are thousands of other examples.
>> 
>> I am all for colour. I don't hate B&W but I do not celebrate it as 
>> superior.
>> 
>> Great artists have always sketched in B&W (pencil or charcoal, for 
>> example).
>> Their great works are always in full colour.
>> 
>> Even ancient sculpture had colour infill. Great ancient Egyptian tomb art 
>> is
>> mostly in colour.
>> 
>> Life is in colour. B&W is an illusion resulting from a technological
>> deficiency.
>> 
>> Take B&W photos if it pleases you and if it matches your mindset. But to
>> promote it as inherently superior is just plain silly.
>> 
>> Emanuel
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information


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Replies: Reply from sonc.hegr at gmail.com (Sonny Carter) ([Leica] Color vs B&W)