Your preferences for colour, or black and white

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sandeha
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Your preferences for colour, or black and white

Post by sandeha » Thu Sep 07, 2006 7:26 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

Leaving aside issues like cost or control, which may be entirely due to individual circumstances or personal experience, what reasons would you have for preferring either bw or colour in your work or the work of others?

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I have my own preferences which possibly stem from my background in the more traditional fine arts, which I automatically transfer to my photography. Other influences probably play a certain part, and I'll try to come back on these if anyone first wants to offer opinions (and examples) of why they choose one or the other.

NPS160 and ERA100 shot with a 90mm Angulon and a 210mm Caltar.

Tim Myers
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Post by Tim Myers » Thu Sep 07, 2006 8:01 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

I don't prefer B&W over colour or vice versa - I think that both media have equal merits, and subjects to which they are suited.

Over the past few years, I've mainly been shooting chromes, but that hasn't always been the case.

There are some subjects which I find easier to visualise in B&W, and some which I visualise in colour, for instance I just can't visualise graveyards in colour, but load som B&W and I'm snapping away.

Your two images typify this point in my mind; the B&W shot interests me, but the colour one just feels like a happy snap. If there was dramatic interest in the sky, then maybe I'd feel that the shot could work in colour.

I've often converted a colour shot that I felt wasn't working well in to B&W and been more than happy with the results; this shot was originally a colour one but converted to B&W in PS:

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So, to answer your question "what reasons would you have for preferring either bw or colour in your work ", I think the answer for me is simply "Whatever I think works best".

sandeha
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Post by sandeha » Fri Sep 08, 2006 9:04 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

Like Tim, I think both BW and colour have merits and that some subjects are better suited to one or the other. But I do have a preference for those subjects that are better suited to BW ... reasons below. It may not even be so much a preference as a prejudice ...

I was just looking at a close up shot of a poppy in full bloom shot wide open with a digicam. It was a well seen shot, with only the flower head in sharp focus, and the stem and leaves blurred out by the shallow DOF. The strong red flower set against the more subtle oranges and greens of the background worked nicely - just three colours in the entire image. It would have been slightly interesting, but largely pointless rendered in BW. The colour was a major aspect of the intent - the forms seem less relevant.

The problem with colour in photographic images seems (to me) to be that it must exceed reality for it to be interesting, and that requires either the sweet light of dawn or dusk or some special quality of saturation that stems from the emulsion (Velvia) or from filters. A while back, I got hold of a book by Bob Krist (a wiz of the National Geographic) - natural colours were out (this was the 1980's) and it was all warm-ups, polarisers, and fill lights to create the images he wanted. These days, subtle desaturations in PS are also popular. Somehow, if a colour image doesn't go beyond the excitement we can remember (or imagine) it may well be considered snapshotty or little more than a record shot.

I'm personally much more interested in form and line than in colour for its own sake, and I'm also more interested in tones than in shades. Maybe this is down to the magic-of-silver ... the sense of intrigue stimulated by watching old black and white movies, by old newspaper or family photos. I've noticed sometimes that when I look at images of stonework in colour taken in ordinary light, I don't really see the shades of sandy browns or the subtle differences in the speckles of algae. It's only when the image is translated into BW that the strength of each adjacent tone is declared - each tonal difference implying a distinct form. In the absence of some significant colour, our eyes seek out forms, lines, or texture ... and quite often what would be a mundane colour snap becomes iconic in BW. Tim's standing stone seems a good example of that.

While the aesthetics of a colour palette may depend on the quality of the light or its temperature, in a BW image light exposes or masks forms through its relative strength or diffuseness. This was something I Iearned when working in relief sculpture. And any light will do (almost) since each degree of light (by strength or direction) will have its own specific effect. Strong forms dissolve in a diffused light, gentle forms can be made striking under a harsh raking glare ... and the contrast can be manipulated to some extent. I guess this last point is one of the challenges that I find most exciting in BW photography.

The last thing I'd want to suggest is that there are rights and wrongs in this, but I wanted to put forward some of the reasons why I prefer strong forms and naturally gravitate towards BW, while also hearing how others feel about their own choices.

I'd better get back to work. :)

Apple
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Post by Apple » Fri Sep 08, 2006 10:36 pm Etc/GMT-1+01:00

I guess this is a condensation of the above but to me, colour is emotional and B&W is form, shape and texture.

You can convey "feeling" more easily with colour - warm / cool etc. If you desaturate a colour image then you need to have a good "base" image for it to work in B&W - not all images translate either way obviously.

As you say, colour images now have to be something special to stand out as by seeing in colour, it is the everyday norm. A B&W image is not "normal" for most people so they might look at and around the picture more, studying the details.

I guess a lot has been taken on B&W for technical subjects as it gives a more clinical result (although playing with red / green orange filters etc. can "adjust" your slant on something). My particular bent of church photography has always been done in B&W as it can be a technical subject, i.e. recording what's there so traditionally, you could use it as a scale drawing to make another if you had to...

Andrew
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