color vs. black and white

[smokysun]

at shooter's suggestion i'm wondering if we can pin down our differing emotional reactions to color and black and white. here are two of the same scene from another thread. what's the difference in meaning and feeling?

wayne
www.pbase.com/wwp

ps. here's a gallery of infrared with the dp1, just to complicate the issue!

http://www.pbase.com/moonlite/infrared_with_dp1

 

[Per Ofverbeck]

Wayne, somehow I feel you´ve selected a rather extreme example, or it´s just me....

The colour version just doesn´t work for me; while the composition is OK, and the tree shadows do help a little, it´s kind of trivial, no mystery. The multicoloured bundle on the bench looks like a homeless person, but fails to raise any compassion, because it´s just too incidental in this image.

The B/W one is broodingly mystical (almost excessively so, like a Hitchcock scene...). The tree branches, so trivial in colour against a blue sky, make an exquisite pattern (just waiting for the Birds, to continue the Hitchcock metaphor). And, suddenly, that unfortunate person on the bench is reduced to something unidentifiable, but menacing or at least disturbing....

I always am quite partial to B/W, but this pair of images look like a paedagogic illustration of why.....

Looking forward to more examples (Sean has a few on his site, but that´s just for the paying guests... )

 

[Will]

I sometimes wonder if one of the underlying reasons that we find B&W more interesting is simply because we see in B&W at night. Night time is, in nature, when animals have to be more alert and look much harder at their surroundings either to see their next meal or to avoid being one! We have evolved to pay more attention to a B&W image of our world and so we find a B&W view of the same scene more compelling, sometimes compulsive even, than if it were in colour.

Not saying there aren't lots of more subtle and sophisticated reasons as well, but I wonder if the root of them all is the basic instinct?

 

[ecliffordsmith]

Hi Wayne,

An interesting question.

To me the B&W image has far more tension. A sense that something is going on rather than a record of something. This is not always the way but here I feel differently about the person on the bench in the B&W version.

 

[TRSmith]

My own theory may be too simplistic, but I find shapes and spacial/object relationships easier to detect in B&W than with color. Often the color itself overwhelms and causes my "processor" to bog down, which is just enough lag to get in the way of understanding an image.

It can have other effects as well. Like a plateful of alien food, weird coloration (as in the oddly warm and cloying color of the sample) sometimes triggers unpleasant feelings.

On the other hand, color can be exquisite in a way that B&W cannot. When it all comes together, color can be joyous and add an extra dimension. One aspect of that "new dimension" is a sense of being current or in the moment. There's a tiny fragment of my brain that sees all B&W as "old" and/or an attempt to feel "old", as if making an image look like something done 50 years ago will somehow elevate the image beyond it's real strengths and weaknesses.

But these are just impressions from a pre-breakfast mind. I frequently go back and forth between color and b&w without a lot of actual evidence that I know why.

 

[bbodine9]

In this particular file the B&W evokes the mystique whereas the color is just another photo waiting for interpretation. I really do like B&W but find it much more difficult for myself to process than color, not sure why that is.

 

[smokysun]

per,
i did choose these because the differences seemed so extreme (and surprised me). i agree with your evaluation. the picture a cross between landscape and reportage. in color it falls in the middle. but posterized i suspect the color could make a ad for something like: taking the train is best. everything could be simplified. and most good color photos seem to depend upon some kind of simplification.

will,
a very interesting observation, one only a cat lover could have. cats see in b&w and at night they suddenly come alive! it's quite amazing. certainly there's a mystery in the night, part of dreams and imagination. and the need for closer observation, never thought of that connection.

ed,
i took a lot of versions of this. however, i didn't want to go in close. then it's merely a homeless person on a bench. his yellow blanket was what attracted me. alas, i couldn't make it stand out enough. in the b&w much of the picture simply disappears, goes black, and the white blanket catches the eye. or so it seems to me.

TR,
i do think time (our perception of it in photographs) a very significant issue. and since the major interest here seems to be in reportage and street photography with small cameras, time and its passage and weight on people and events seems more easily portrayed in black and white. color in many instances is almost too present. yet in nudes and portraits that can be a virtue. compare martin parr and alex webb. parr really does portraits (of people and food) while webb is a street-reporter who manages to depersonalize people in a scene and give it the feeling of b&w: time passing, individuals caught up in a web (ah, a pun) of circumstances. physical sensuality, is it best hinted at in b&w or can it work better in a garish or subtle color? (david la chapelle or paul outerbridge: http://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/mshowdetailsbycat.cfm?catalog=gm056 ). color often seems to work best in posed and/or controlled situations.

bb,
interesting. i actually find b&w a lot easier. color, for all the reasons mentioned, resists meaning.

thanks, everybody. very interesting responses so far.

best,
wayne
www.pbase.com/wwp

ps. parr and webb both magnum photographers: http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive...&SP=photographers_list&l1=0&XXAPXX=SubPanel10

 

[bbodine9]

Sorry I misled you when I said process I should have said postprocess. I struggle with the conversion of the photo file from color to B&W when I am the person physically processing the photo.

 

[woodyspedden]

at shooter's suggestion i'm wondering if we can pin down our differing emotional reactions to color and black and white. here are two of the same scene from another thread. what's the difference in meaning and feeling?

wayne
www.pbase.com/wwp

ps. here's a gallery of infrared with the dp1, just to complicate the issue!

http://www.pbase.com/moonlite/infrared_with_dp1

Wayne

My observation is that the sky/cloud transitions, juxtaposed with the barren tree limbs, makes for a very mysterious effect. You can read into it what you like but it is hard to ignore in black and white. The same transitions, going from sunny blue to ice white simply doesn't convey the same tensions. Put the house on a hill and make it a little older and you have the scene from "Psycho."

Very very good

Woody

 

[Streetshooter]

I think we're missing the Bigger Picture here....just an observation...
Perhaps it's not about any image in particular but about process....

I am interested in a few things...first being,
in your quest for images, when you decide something works, how and why do you decide to choose between b&w or color.....

or....

is the decision an afterthought that happens on the visualization of the image....and then you process and convert one way or another.....

For me...it's always been b&w...of course I see in color but the act of capturing and processing to b&w has always been a spiritual process....it still is...

Even now in the digital age, it's so easy to convert to almost anything and still b&w does it for me....So....
where are you at on this journey......?

 

[nei1]

Black and white is a process of limitation and hence restriction.It is and always has been the walls that create art not the breaking of them or the liberation from imprisonment.The artist must always be in one sort of jail to show others the way out.
If you have another look at parrs colour work you can see colour has been used as structure in the image,almost a deliberate crossover from black and white to colour,indicating to me just how tough the transition is,a very underestimated photographer...my point is that if an artist does break out of jail its only to find himself in another one.

 

[Streetshooter]

nei1,
Do you really feel limited in your photography? Do you feel restrictions? I don't mean by cameras, computers, darkrooms etc...I mean by the process of seeing/recording.....

For me, the only time I ever feel complete is making images....When I am not doing some sort of process, I feel disconnected from the world as if a part of me is not awake...Carrying a camera and working...is like being in touch with THE LORD, the universe, the earth, the city, life air etc....

I could never feel restricted or limited and wonder what creates these things.....

 

[nei1]

If the restrictions were not there we might all be with youre lord,life the universe and everything;dead for want of a better word.

 

[Streetshooter]

Hey man,
sorry if you don't feel life's blood in your photography..but don't shame on me because I do...in fact I certainly am not the only one.....I was taught to connect by the best, many of the best.....so I am carrying on a tradition that I and others respect....

thanks....

 

[Bob]

It is our chalk and our paper.
The chalk changes as does the paper, the quest does not.
-bob

 

[Streetshooter]

Thanks Bob......
I'm gonna post a portrait of a friend of mine who passed on some time ago...I think you will recognize him.....I did a portrait of him with my 8 x 10 Deardorff and made him a platinum print.....

Pleas understand that these images are collectable and are in major collections both public and private, thus the poor reproduction....

The top is....Harry Callahan
The middle is Harry Bertoia and the Bottom is
Edmund Bacon, we were working on a book together at the time of his passing.....

I have more if the interest is there....
don

 

[jonoslack]

Well
I think this is really simple. If the colour adds something, then it's colour . . . if it doesn't then it should be black and white; because the composition and intention is clearer.

The problem is deciding when colour adds something, in this shot (at least with this colour) it clearly doesn't.

 

[smokysun]

will,
i'd like to go back to your thesis: b&w attracts us as that's how we see at night.
in his book "the inner game of outdoor photography" galen rowell has an essay called: 'the doors of perception (p.48)' where he discusses the retenix theory of edward land, poloroid inventor. i quote,

"Land conclusively demonstrated in several ways that the eye senses only black and white and that our experience of color is entirely a construct of our minds that varies tremendously.

"Although texts continue to say that the cones in our eyes see color, while rods see only black and white, Land has turned the tables to make subjects sense color with strictly their rods in extremely low light. He has also demonstrated how almost all common colors can be made to appear from information delivered by a triplet of cones that are not responsive to 'individual' colors. In a process somewhat like merging black and white negatives made with different filters, the three types of cones deliver colorless responses to broad, overlapping bands of wavelengths together with all-important lightness information about reflectivity derived by comparison of the triplet of responses. The color is in our heads."

"Land's radical answer is that our eyes don't respond to color at all. Quite literally, color is a figment of our imagination."

he follows up with two more essays 'eye of the beholder' and 'visual reality'.

http://www.amazon.com/Galen-Rowells...=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233713141&sr=1-2


so, in this scenerio b&w photos remove interpretation! and show the world as it really is.

far-fetched? rowell discusses an anthropologist on mars by oliver sacks and the first essay 'the case of the colorblind artist'. it's an amazing substantiation of your theory. an auto accident and concussion cause a 65 year old painter to lose his ability to see color. at first he thinks he still knows how color looks and paints with it. but he doesn't (examples given). eventually he not only accepts his condition but makes hay of it, working at night in b&w and walking lamplit streets. in other words, this man becomes a cat, able to see in the dark. take a look at the essay. i'm pretty sure you will find it fascinating.

http://www.amazon.com/Anthropologis...bs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233713083&sr=8-1

wayne
www.pbase.com/wwp

ps. for me creation is never finished, hence inventions, babies, and art. it's our job to carry it on with whatever talents and resources we have.

 

[Lili]

Wills analysis intrigues me, I do have Cats and see what you mean Wayne.
My take has heretofore been that color tends, tho not always, to the surface. B&W deals more with substance, form, lighting if you will.
B&W, when effective, draws me in deeply. Wills insight might well explain some of that....
Interesting excercise Wayne!

 

[Bob]

Oh, Yeah Harry Callahan!
I recognize him, and his work as well.
He has a certain humbleness of craft and exquisite street shots that I admire.
I am not as familiar with the works of the other two.
-bob