What types of pictures look best in black and white?

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>I can enjoy smoking a cigarette because it is a hand to mouth activity, which may simulate the pleasure or be analogous to picking ripe black berries from a bush and eating them.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Rationalize it any way you like. It will still kill you and likely rob your kids of a father, or your siblings of a brother, or your friends of a loved one.</p>

<p>Good analogy, though. An aspect of what I was saying is that part of the reason black and white is so popular is because it's a default, or a HABIT. Like smoking cigarettes. Luckily photographic habits aren't really dangerous to your physical health. (Well, they certainly can be but a habitual use or preference for black and white probably won't be.)</p>

[richardsperry]

"WHY MUST YOU FOLKS GET OFF track :"

 

Ok, I give up. Cut to the chase, I get it.

 

The question is, "What types of pictures look best in black and white?"

 

My answer is,

The 'best' black and white pictures are those that simulate scenes which you might see at night. They will remind you or

look like something that you would or could see at night, by dim light. A pseudo firelit scene or pseudo moonlit scene.

[Brad_]

<center>

<img src= "http://citysnaps.net/2011%20photos/Gibson%20S.jpg"> <BR>

<I>Gibson, in San Francisco • iPhone 4 • ©2011 Brad Evans</i> <P>

 

</center>

 

<P>

 

>>> WHY MUST YOU FOLKS GET OFF track <P>

 

That is a good question...

[mukul_dube]

<p>Mukul says, "Yet, as the original post says, there are certain subjects which may appear better in B&W. I shoot in colour now (after 30+ years -- 1960 to 1990something -- in B&W), and convert to B&W only when ..." and this is described as "Mukul's apparent dismissal of black and white photography"? Get back to your beer, boy.</p>

[sarah_fox]

<blockquote>

<p>WHY MUST YOU FOLKS GET OFF track :</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Amen!</p>

<p>There's quite a lot of "free and loose" going on, tiptoeing around the margins of legitimate science and scientific knowledge -- and getting half of it dead-wrong. IMO, our primal biological history probably has far less to do with our sensory preferences than the characteristics of signal processing in our modern-day brains. FAIW, I had at one time entertained an information processing notion of why object identification might be easier with monochrome image than a color one, but after a bit of research into the connectivity of various areas of visual cortex, I found that my theory was all wet. I'm sorry I have nothing to offer for this discussion in that regard (yet?).</p>

<p>Getting more on track with a discussion of photography, color photography has been around for a very long time -- far longer than most people think. I have a color photograph of a relative that was made in the 1930's, and no, I'm not talking about a colored black and white photo. I believe the first color photographs went back into the teens. So why did we shoot B&W for so long if the basic technology was there? Why did color photography remain a kludgy, niche endeavor? I would suggest that B&W was considered just fine for the photographs people were taking.</p>

<p>Even when color film was commonly available, lots of people still shot B&W, even if they had a lab process it. Why was that? I suspect it was because many people still preferred the quality of results from their B&W, color being not yet as good.</p>

<p>I think our best modern-day comparision might be to 3-D photography. The technology has been around since the earliest days of photography, and consumer stereo cameras have long been available. So why aren't all our cameras stereo nowadays? I suspect it's because 3-D images are still not convenient enough to bother with. They're interesting, to be sure, but nobody considers them essential to photography.</p>

<p>Coming round full circle, what makes a B&W photo sometimes better than a color one? Maybe it's a distillation of the essential elements of a scene that really matter to us. Maybe a B&W image, distilled thusly, is more salient to us in the same sense that a poem is more salient than an editorial. Perhaps colors are best extracted when they become superfluous. And perhaps colors are sometimes part of the essential message, so only a color representation will work.</p>

<p>In the end, perhaps what we crave is simplicity -- the essential elements, and nothing more.</p>

[mukul_dube]

<p>Well put. Perhaps we have blundered into thinking that the question, "What types of pictures look best in black and white?" is necessarily followed by "-- and bleedin' orful in colour." The idea of <em>best</em> can co-exist with that of <em>good</em>.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>"In the end, perhaps what we crave is simplicity -- the essential elements, and nothing more." --Sarah</p>

<p>Sarah, interesting point. Some likely do prefer this. I don't. I tend to like clutter, excess. I love Baroque architecture with all its unnecessary adornments and find Chopin's music, with its unnecessary arpeggios and glissandos, thrilling. I'm glad there's both Rachmaninoff and Bach, both Adams and Meyerowitz, Hosoe and Goldin. Someone like <a href="http://www.vincentborrelli.com/cgi-bin/vbb/101174">Rineke Dijkstra</a> uses color more sparsely and essentially than someone like <a href="http://japan-photo.info/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/MORIYAMA_02755_750.jpg">Moriyama</a> uses black and white. It really is hard, if not impossible, to generalize.</p>

<p>As someone way above made clear, it's not what makes a b/w or a color photo better, it's why each of us may prefer one or may see a particular image or type of image more likely one way or the other.</p>

<p>I often find formulations of "better or worse" both un-artistic and un-constructive. I can appreciate each without needing to place them in a competition.</p>

<p>The following quote, like any isolated quote, has its limits but speaks an important truth:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>"Taste is the enemy of creativeness."</em> --Pablo Picasso</p>

</blockquote>

[GBarrington]

<p>Maybe the real reason B&W is popular is that people like something familiar but just different enough for it to FEEL a bit strange.</p>

[ted_marcus1]

<p>I don't often use black and white, since I'm rather fond of vivid color. But occasionally I convert my pictures to black and white. I might do that when I want to emphasize a stark geometric subject (<a href="http://www.tedsimages.com/text/ladtcgb.htm">example 1</a> or <a href="http://www.tedsimages.com/text/gcextbw.htm">example 2</a>), or a <a href="http://www.tedsimages.com/text/lagbftp.htm">texture</a>. In such cases, the color tends to be subdued or uninteresting anyway, and becomes a distraction.<br>

Sometimes it's a matter of desperation: In <a href="http://www.tedsimages.com/text/gcecpbw.htm">this late afternoon scene</a> I could not get a color balance I liked. Getting rid of the color seemed the best option, and I think it suits the subject.</p>

[lauren_macintosh]

<p>A Major amount of us grew up with Black first then along came color and the early days of color were not that great but as time went it did get better, So I suppose B&W feels more like home than color :</p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>Fred, I don't disagree with you on those points either. However, I'll take one liberty with what you've said. IMO, there is no such thing as an unnecessary adornment in baroque architecture or an unnecessary flourish in Chopin's music. The adornments are essential to both.</p>

[mike dixon]

<I>I am genetically 50% my mother, and 50% my father. I am 66.66% genetically similar to both of my younger sisters. When I reproduce, I am passing only 25% of my mother's and 25% of my father's genetic make up, yet 33.3% of both of my respective sisters' genes. If my math is correct.</i><P>

 

I apologize for introducing another "off track" comment, but the math here is not correct. I am genuinely intrigued with the derivation of these figures, though. I've never heard of inheritance that occurs in thirds or sixths in species with only two sexes.

[mark_poseley]

<p>Content deleted for lack of relevance. ;)</p>

[don_essedi]

"I've never heard of inheritance that occurs in thirds or sixths in species with only two sexes."

 

Gilgamesh, the stories say, was 1/3 god.

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Sarah, right you are. It's hard to write irony into a statement. I said unnecessary but meant "unnecessary." </p>

[richardsperry]

http://www.tedsimages.com/text/gcecpbw.htm

 

Ted, why is the sky so dark?

 

It really wasn't that dark in real life when you shot it, was it?

[sarah_fox]

<p>Please let's not get too critical of anyone's grasp of scientific knowledge. Very few people know "squat" about anything scientists have learned. Kudos to Richard for at least being aware of Gunter Dorner's research! Honorable mention for having slept through a few sociobiology lectures that most people would not have attended at all. I admit this is a very emotional matter for me. I and my colleagues in the biological sciences had once devoted our lives to something society deemed useless and unworthy of funding. Some keep plugging away, despite it all, somehow managing to scrape together scraps of support here and there. It truly saddens me to see our hard work mangled in this way.</p>

<p>However, the fact remains that humans are not nocturnal, and our eyes are adapted for diurnal activities, with very, very few macular rods. That makes us just like the entire great ape radiation of which we are a part and makes us like almost all other primates. Comparing rod counts rather misses the point. In fact if it means anything to anyone, I bet we could stuff a mouse's entire eyeball with the rods from a human eye and have plenty left over. (A mouse is a nocturnal creature.)</p>

<p>Anyway, we will not readily have answers like how many rods are found in a bonobo's retina without funding, so please don't be impatient with us, Richard. Honestly, there are far more important things to research that are going entirely neglected, so those sorts of trivia are not likely to be forthcoming for quite some time yet -- perhaps not even in our lifetimes. If anyone knows the rod count in a bonobo retina (which is possible), it's surely because determining that count was necessary for addressing some larger issue.</p>

[richardsperry]

It is counter intuitive that humans are nocturnal. Only wild animals are nocturnal.

 

Everyone knows that. It's just common sense.

[ted_marcus1]

<p>@Richard Sperry: <em>http://www.tedsimages.com/text/gcecpbw.htm Ted, why is the sky so dark? It really wasn't that dark in real life when you shot it, was it?</em><br>

I didn't record the settings I used for the black and white conversion, but I suspect I turned up the red channel. That would make the building brighter (it was close to sunset, so there was a lot of red) and the sky darker. While it's often best to work at mapping colors into gray tones as naturally as possible, I didn't think that would be appropriate for this picture. <em><br /></em></p>

[mike dixon]

"Please let's not get too critical of anyone's grasp of scientific knowledge. "

 

When someone provides basic data that's completely wrong (66% shared genes with siblings rather than 50%) then proceeds to make faulty arguments in addition (even if siblings did share 66% of your genes, they would only pass on 33% of them to their offspring), their mistakes should be noted. Nonsensical conclusions based on incorrect data and faulty reasoning do not further the cause of science. In fact, flawed logic using fictional facts is the very opposite of science.

[sarah_fox]

<p>Mike, honestly it's like spitting in the ocean. In my experience, people will believe what they want to believe, the facts be damned. I guess my mouth has gotten a bit too dry to keep spitting.</p>

[mike dixon]

"In my experience, people will believe what they want to believe, the facts be damned."

 

I won't argue with that. However, I'm not going to offer kudos to someone for spouting complete nonsense just because their nonsense is about science.

[martinangus]

<p>What an eclectic group of replies I read from such a simple original question...</p>

<div></div>

[sarah_fox]

<p>Mike, the kudos were for his knowing about Dorner's research on maternal stress vs. male homosexuality and having some notion of what kin selection is about. Beyond that, everything is quite mangled, as I said. I try to be positive. In all honesty, his understanding of the sciences somewhat exceeds most people's, and although I would wish for much more, I'm not going to bash him over the head about it. Hey, most people's notion of evolution only involves a crude notion of natural selection, which is only a small part of the entire picture. And most people who claim to believe in evolution can't correctly recount any of the multitudes of theories they supposedly endorse. For that matter, most creationists have no understanding of what's in the Bible either. Intellectually, most people are extraordinarily sloppy. I've come to expect this of people.</p>

[johne37179]

<p>While it is a matter of personal taste. I generally prefer black and white over color for virtually any subject.</p>