black and white vs. color (good and bad pictures)

[renée damstra]

Lately I'm a bit thinking about the meaning and addition of color or black and

white. For instance, I sometimes have pictures that I think are not that good

but when I put them in black and white they look much better. Or pictures that

look somewhat good in color but look bad in black and white, and I think it is

because there is no color to distract from the bad aspects, usually

composition, with these kind of pictures. While with the other way around, when

black&white looks better than color, it usually has to do with lighting.

Through black and white (and the channel mixer of Photoshop) the lighting

somehow looks less bad than in color.

 

I wonder what your ideas are about this, and do you think a picture is less

good when it only looks good in color or black and white and not in both? Is it

the best when it looks good in both?

 

I'm also interested in preferences and such, but I mainly wonder what you think

about this. If a picture in color with somewhat bad lighting looks better in

black and white, or a picture with somewhat bad composition looks better in

color, can you call it a good picture? Usually I have this with pictures that

are not outstanding.

 

I usually find it an achievement when someone can make pictures of a flower

that looks good in black and white, and even better: when they can make the

picture look better in black and white than it would have been in color, and I

find it an achievement when someone can make fine art nude photographs in

color, that don't look too sleazy/vulgar/over the top.

 

*P.S.note how the title 'black and white vs. color' makes the black and white

look stronger than the other way around when it would be 'color vs. black and

white'.*

[rich_ullsmith1]

Renee, you are asking about many different things here.

 

I believe that producing a photograph, that is, an image on paper in my hand, is something of a craft, and the availability of a switch to add or take away color is not part of that.

 

Never printed a b&w neg in color. Printed a few color negs in b&w though, heh heh.

[asher]

<i>"when black&white looks better than color, ..."<br>

"If a picture in color with somewhat bad lighting looks better in black and white..."

</i><p>

A photograph's impact is not a quantitative metric. It's personal and subjective. What you

prefer as "better" in a B&W flower photo I may find completely without interest in color or

B&W, particularly if the there is "bad lighting". But so what? It's not a competition.

[sknowles]

I'm one of those who don't mix the two. I focus on one when I'm shooting, editing and

producing, and only very rarely make a b&w from color. To me it's about seeing when you're

photographing. Others can see both in the image in the field or on the computer. That's their

talent I appreciate to see the possibilities. It's just not my interest, so the two never overlap.

That's the beauty of photography and the tools available today. There's no limit to your vision

and imagination, from the simple and straight-forward to the complex and intricate.

[gaussian_blur]

Renee, you have surely come across few very interesting topics here!

I noticed too that for some people turning color photos in black and white is as if those photos look much better.

In fact I think that BW photography is very difficult and requires a high degree of sensibility and also a lot of experience.

But for most of the people is an illusion: one cannot just turn ANY photo in BW and end up with a good photo.

Others add a bit of color and call it "sepia"!

Black and whites photography eliminates the non-important information and keeps the essential.

But then it means that the photo MUST have something to say, otherwise, color or black and white, is the same!

For me photography is about CONTENT, every photo must have one, as clear as possible.

[al_kaplan1]

Before the days of digital, photographers pretty much made up their minds about color vs. B&W before putting the film in the camera. For a couple of decades newspaper photographers would often shoot color and see the pix end up in the paper as B&W, but that was the editor's decision mostly based on economics.

 

The whole stream of thought changes when you shoot color, from the arrangement of darks to lights in the composiition to the color contrast of say red next to yellow compared to magenta next to pink, when both pairs might look the same in B&W.

 

It's better to learn to see and shoot good pictures than try to salvage bad ones. Try thinking B&W or thinking color.

[wigwam jones]

I've had a bad random shadow from an outdoor portrait ruin the shot, only to find out that when converted to B&W, it looked so good, I ended up selling it. That same shadow added something to the photo that when seen in color just detracted.

 

I have always preferred B&W to color, but in my case, I feel strongly that it is because I am color-blind. I don't see in B&W, I see colors, but I often can't identify them. So for me, B&W is just a more comfortable place to work.

 

I also feel that color is often best used when the photograph is about the color, not about the subject per se. When the color is stripped away, I think it makes people begin to interpret, instead of taking the photograph at face value - what is it about, what does it mean, what was the photographer trying to say?

 

Anyway just some random thoughts.

[pico]

Speaking to Wigwam:

 

Black & White is color without hue. I should think it would be difficult for a color-blind

person to learn filtration and rendering hues. It is very interesting: something more for me

to learn about. The thought will be with me all day.

 

Perhaps I am culturally disadvantaged, biased, or learned-engrained because I grew up

with B&W. It may explain why I still prefer B&W for personal work - to me it is the medium

in which light is given its presence, allowed to make a statement upon the subject without

the largely accidental incidence of color. (I am not a nature photographer.)

 

Color has its place and it is profound. But not limiting enough for this person.

[wigwam jones]

Pico,

 

Just to quickly respond and not hijack the thread - it is not too hard for a color-blind photographer to understand filtration - we get the concept of colors, we see colors, we just can't easily identify some shades of colors - others are generally obvious even to us. There are lots of different forms of color-vision defect, red/green being the most common. My problem has never been understanding filtration, but in the case of filters not clearly marked - knowing what color they are. I've put green filters on when I meant to put on red. In photoshop, of course, that's not a problem.

[spanky]

I recently visited an exhibit of a handful of local photographers. All but two of the photographers saw fit to add so much splotches of color and other photoshop atrocities that one had to really look hard and close to see anything that looked like an actual photograph.

It made me think that perhaps these photographers felt that a photograph could not stand on it's own so it needed to look like a painting for it to be considered art. All I could think when looking at these was "If they wanted to make abstract or impressionist paintings, then why didn't they just do that? I came here hoping to see photographs." There is elegance in simplicity, not cheesy gimmicky.

[wigwam jones]

I went to a car show and took a photo of a beautiful chopped, channeled, and dropped 1953 Chevy sedan, which had been painted candy-apple red. It was luscious. It would have been criminal for me not to have used my (at that time) Agfa Ultra 50 to record it so red it made your eyes hurt. B&W would have been a real loss in that case.

 

Likewise, I got a terrific shot of a youngster playing in a park, but the light through the leaves put a green cast on his skin - B&W gave me what I wanted; light, dappled shadow, and texture - the color would have been a distraction.

 

Each in their place. If color adds nothing to the image, I tend to remove it. If it makes the image pop or if the color *is* the story, then it stays in. If I shot in color and I see no clear advantage either way, I leave it as it is.

 

When I go out with B&W film, I tend to 'think' in B&W and look for B&W photos to take.

[pico]

<i>I went to a car show and took a photo of a beautiful chopped, channeled, and dropped

1953 Chevy sedan, which had been painted candy-apple red. It was luscious. </i><p>

While I appreciate the craft of the automobile, there is an anti-materialist imp in me that

compels me to photograph the same in B&W to abstract such a subject.<p>

OTOH, the anti-materialst thing is possibly wishful thinking as evinced by this utter snapshot

of the last bike I built from the very ground up. The bike is all black, one red pinstripe, and a

bit of chrome. Snapshot in color.<p>

But that was then.<p><div></div>

[leericks]

I sometimes know whether one of my news pictures will be run in B & W or color. If I do it changes my choice of subject and composition. Most of the time, as Al points out, we don't know which it will be. If time and other factors permit I sometimes take pictures for each eventuality.

 

In an effort to connect with the newspaper photogs of the past I recently resolved to shoot a sporting event with both my D2Hs and a Crown Graphic. I think this should be a fun time warp. I look forward to spending some time in the darkroom trying not to mess up the HP5. Ah the smell of D76 in the morning. It smells like.....

[al_kaplan1]

Lee, I think it'd be close enought to the "old timey" if you forget the Crown Graphic and just use a TLR like a Rolleiflex, using the open sportsfinder for framing. Old oxygenated-until-it-turns-brown D-76 smells pretty much the same as Dektol left out in an open tray for a few days. Big YUCK!! Fresh, neither is too bad.

[k5083]

The OP offers an interesting window into the post-filmic mindset of a picture looking better "in" black and white vs. "in" color. Used to be, there were black and white pictures and there were color pictures. At the moment of exposure you were only "seeing" in one or the other; pictures didn't try on colors like clothes (Photo: "Does this color make me look fat, dear?" Photographer: "Well, black is more slimming.")

 

Then again Paul Simon was perhaps prescient when he recorded the lyric, "Everything looks worse in black and white," but frequently in concert changed it to "Everything looks better in black and white."

[spanky]

Well, it's always been a kind of given that B&W is more artistic which explains why so much work in the galleries and museums up until recently was labeled "silver geletin print" or something to that effect.

 

Earlier today in a bookstore I thumbed through the new issue of Lenswork. If I recall correctly, all the prints in this issue were inkjet prints. Furthermore only one photographer used film (4x5).

So what does this mean? It means that despite what many curators said some years ago about wanting only traditional silver prints from negatives no longer holds true. If they want to stay in business they have no choice but to accept digital captured inkjet prints be they color or B&W.

 

Of course there are exceptions. In Studio City CA a gallery opened up called 4260 whose goal is to support traditional B&W photographers. I visited last Wed and although I never heard of any of the photographers whose work was on the wall, I thought there was some very fine work. Most works were in the $300-$500 range which I felt was a reasonable price for the works, all of which was described as archival printed. I'd certainly feel better about purchasing one of these as opposed to an inkjet print simply due to the fact that I remain skeptical about the archive properties of inkjet prints despite what the manufactures say. Ask me in 100 years and I'll have an answere for you.

[Spearhead]

<i>If they want to stay in business they have no choice but to accept digital captured inkjet prints be they color or B&W.</i><p>

 

I may be an optimist, but I don't see this as true at all, based on the discussions I have had with people running galleries. They are more interested in the photographs than the photographers' choices for process. I've seen a lot of truly terrible silver gelatin prints that I hope to never see again, and some beautiful digital prints. And vice versa. In the end, I always find myself caring about the photograph rather than the process. I guess some people feel otherwise, especially reading about that LA gallery.

[dave_reichert1]

"The bike is all black, one red pinstripe, and a bit of chrome."

 

Nice ride, Pico. The "Leica Hog". ;-)

[stormchaser]

I normally use B&W just because it maks pictures look classier. They each have their strengths and weaknesses, but I only use colour when it's necessary to the photograph. B&W, IMO, shows expressions, details, and pretty much anything else you can name, better.

[root]

Sometimes color is a distraction . . . but mostly I am attracted to it and it becomes an integral part of my compositions.

[spanky]

Absolutley correct Jeff. The prints in the April issue of Lenswork are stunning.

[neilpeters]

I'll throw in a twist. I begin with B+W and then hand-color. But first, it begins life as a B+W. We see alot more color these days, as opposed to 20 years ago, since digital color is so easy to achieve, and it looks superb. In the past color printing was expensive, relatively, and the chemicals were dangerous ( most, not all ). When you loaded the B+W film, you immediately began "thinking" in B+W. Composition, light, contrast, and mostly -tonal range- become important priorities. Tonal range is the key, its not something many photographers worry about with color first thinking, although it's subliminal. The equal trade off is depth of color, saturation, which is not a concern in B+W, and not the same thinking or seeing as tonal range. Digital is a new 500 pound gorilla in this discussion, very few photographers will turn off color capture and record only in B+W on digital cards, why would you. This allows a nice challenge to see and think in color and B+W at the same time, since you can decide later, the end result.

[renée damstra]

Do you think a photo which looks great in both color and black and white is 'better'/worth more than a photo that only looks great in color OR black and white?

[neilpeters]

Great question and observation Renee. To me, no. Any individual picture can stand on it's own merit in only one form. A print which can look great in color or B+W is probably very stong in composition and light, intensity, and the mood is not betrayed in either form.