Color or B+W

[danielheller]

<p>You are photographing for your own pleasure.<br>

You intend to display your work in a gallery.<br>

You wish to sell most if not all of your work.<br>

You want to produce what the "industry" or you perceive as "Fine Art Photography"<br>

Your subject is Landscape.<br>

How would you want your final display to be presented to your audience.<br>

In Color or in B+W ?</p>

[wogears]

<p>Whatever is appropriate to the subject. Making art with the goal of selling it is a touchy proposition at the least. The cynic in me says, "Black-and-white. It's what 'collectors' want." The artist says, "Nothing wrong with saleability, but if I don't make it the way I see it, it won't sell at all."</p>

 

[JDMvW]

<blockquote>

<p>How would you want your final display to be presented to your audience.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I personally want to be cremated.</p>

<p>As for the other subjects/topics/questions, so much depends on the audience you are selling to.<br>

For some, only "sofa-sized" color prints will do. </p>

<p>The photograph sellers hawking their wares at large 'craft fairs' seem to be mostly selling color. On the other hand, at a fancy gallery in Santa Fe, most of the prints for sale were B&W.</p>

<p>For my own pleasure?<br>

Whatever I danged well feel like at the time.</p>

[jordan2240]

<p>I don't really understand why anyone would prefer b&w over color. Even if you simply mute the colors, I'd prefer that to black and white. But I'm certainly no artist (as determined by a previous thread).</p>

[hugh_sakols]

<p>I think BW is more than just converting it to BW. Also one has to think about printing BW to get the best possible print. Over the last year I have been playing with BW conversions, but I still haven't printed them. That is going to be a whole new learning curve. With Epson one must use Adavanced BW mode. Keep in mind their is a true art to printing whether it be BW or Color. I personally am more comfortable with color, but becoming more intrigued by black and white. Still I'm going to have a hard time making my prints shine like those of someone like John Sexton. I have only sold color prints.</p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>Both have their place, and many photogs do both. Of course if you're going to do flowers and sunsets and stuff, you're probably better off with color, which is of course why I've done these subjects in B&W. (Why not?)</p>

[danielheller]

<p>Good tactique Sarah, something to keep in mind...</p>

[dave_redmann]

<p><em>I don't really understand why anyone would prefer b&w over color.</em></p>

<p>B&W is an additional abstraction of the subject. As such, it provides inherent tools for expression and interpretation. Also, it <em>can</em> free interesting shapes, forms, and even tones from the interfering influence or 'noise' that color sometimes creates. Maybe go read Ansel Adams' <em>Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs</em>.</p>

<p>To answer the OP's question more directly, I think it depends on which better expresses your vision, and also how effectively the colors in the original image are, or can be edited to be, interesting parts of the composition. If I had to guess, on the whole the higher end of the market is somewhat more B&W and the lower end is somewhat more color, with many exceptions.</p>

<p>And JDM, they don't need to cremate me, but I definitely do not like open-casket funerals, so just keep the box closed!</p>

 

[jordan2240]

<p>Dave,<br>

Understood. I was actually looking at some Adams prints recently and thought it would be quite interesting to see them in color. But I think B&W is often seen as 'artsy' simply because it's different.</p>

<p>Sarah, I'd love to see a sunset picture that looked better in B&W.</p>

[sarah_fox]

<p>Bill, maybe not "better," but perhaps more to the point of the feelings it evoked when I saw it:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phapainterssunsetsm.jpg">http://www.graphic-fusion.com/phapainterssunsetsm.jpg</a></p>

<p>This sunset sky, in B&W, was strongly reminiscent of a serigraph (in B&W!) that hung in my bedroom during my early childhood. (Now a half century later, it still hangs in my bedroom.) Maybe nobody else would appreciate the photo rendered this way, but I do. Weird, maybe. ;-) I originally took the photo to add to my collection of interesting skies for sky substitutions, not intending it to be a photo standing on its own merit. It's hardly one of my better photos, but I thought it interesting nonetheless.</p>

[dave_redmann]

<p>Just as an example, I would be very curious to see what <em>Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico</em> would look like, had it been shot with, say, Ektar 100.* I can imagine potentially a beautiful color palette, or also potentially large areas of low saturation and/or colors that are not aesthetically pleasing. So maybe it would be great, but maybe it would look weak and uninteresting compared to the B&W version.</p>

<p>* Given the scene's extreme contrast and the steps Adams took to tame it when developing and printing, something like an early version of Kodachrome, which may have been available to Adams, probably would have produced an uninteresting result.</p>

 

[jordan2240]

<p>Sarah,<br>

It's a different perspective for sure. I have to recant my initial statement though because I was working on a print just recently that, thinking about it, might have more appeal in B&W. It's of an Amish buggy entering a covered bridge, and the flora in the picture is rather drab looking. In B&W, said flora would blend in better and be less distracting. I'll have to do a conversion on it and see if my theory proves correct.</p>

<p>Dave,<br>

That would definitely be an interesting comparison. Perhaps that one was lacking enough in color that it does look better in B&W.</p>

<p>Dani,<br>

Sorry, don't mean to hijack your thread and turn it into a color vs B&W discussion, though I guess it does apply somewhat.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>While I do a lot in B&W, landscapes usually are colour, for the relatively simple reason that I do not find the subject matter to work better in B&W. One problem being that subtle different shades of green easily become one not-so-subtle mid-grey - a lack of contrast. A clear blue sky works nice in colour; B&W needs clouds else it's just <a href="/photo/14077794">dark grey area</a>... In the end, the choice to remove colour needs to be supported in your composition, in the way the different shades will work, whether you have enough contrast etc. One of the reasons why I often prefer B&W is that for me, without colour, an image becomes <a href="/photo/14077815">more graphic (lines, spaces, points)</a>, which can help underline the structure of an image better. But it could also be that I'm just a bit clumsy with colour, still.<br>

Since I never quite got what <em>fine art</em> is (in comparison to just normal art), I do not tune my work to be that. My work needs to be my work, first and foremost. And as it is, the choice for colour versus B&W somehow always comes naturally when looking at an image, and how I want it to look. The audience or valuation of others doesn't come into play for that.<br>

I never sold an image in my life, though. So for whatever the above is worth... ;-)</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<blockquote>

<p>"I'd love to see a sunset picture that looked better in B&W."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I preferred the monochrome toned version of this one. The color version seemed a bit melodramatic, and detracted from the graphic elements I wanted to emphasize. And, yup, the sky really looked like that, on that particular evening.<br>

*<br>

*<a href="/photo/17650486&size=lg"><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17650486-md.jpg" alt="LR4_DSC_7889-1" width="680" height="455" border="0" /></a><br>

*<br>

*<a href="/photo/17648340&size=lg"><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17648340-md.jpg" alt="LR4_DSC_7889-1-3" width="680" height="454" border="0" /></a><br>

*</p>

[Member69643]

<p>Lex, without the color one doesn't even know it's a sunset. It looks like a cloudy day.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Lex, I do think the monochrome tinted version has possibility and can understand your predilection to it. There's a slightly different crop to the monochrome which, for me, works on the sides but not on the bottom. Overall, though, I do think the monochrome loses some energy and that's more a matter of conversion and levels than color or black and white. The yellow stuttering streaks of light, particularly toward the bottom behind the two thin branches to the right of the four branches on the left side of the picture, are somewhat lost in the second version, partly because of the cropping and partly because of more passive highlighting and tonality. The greenish area in the color version, just to the left of the thicker branches on the right of the photo shows up with no differentiating quality in the monochrome and I might have worked to establish such differentiation because it gives the photo something interesting and extra in the color version. What the color version seems to have more of than the black and white version is texture. Having said that, I don't think color <em>per se</em> has more texture than black and white, I just think it can sometimes be important to maintain texture in a black and white rendition when the file is converted, and my comments are more about this particular photo than photos in general.</p>

<p>On the other hand, you may prefer the less energized calmness of the monochrome version, in which case my comments simply reference a noticeable difference between the two versions, without necessarily demanding a qualitative judgment.</p>

[jordan2240]

<p>Lex,<br>

For me, the variations above set two totally different moods. The first has me sitting on the deck enjoying the palette, while the 2nd has me scurrying inside to avoid the coming apocalypse. Both work from a photographic standpoint. Just depends on what you wanted to convey.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Thanks, folks. I like both color and monochrome versions, but the mono better fits the overall aesthetic of a series of photos from this same location. I do like the color version because it's reminiscent of a scene in Coppola's "Dracula" in which Jonathan Harker is riding a train to Transylvania and Dracula's eye appears in a similarly melodramatic colorful sunset. I love that movie and Coppola's determination to incorporate as many old school movie effects as possible into this lovely, lush, gory, campy homage and pastiche.</p>

<p>Good point about the crop, Fred, thanks. I've tried a few different versions of this, in part because I realized photo.net's batch uploader was recompressing my JPEGs and introducing some unwanted artifacts. This particular toned monochrome version was actually a reject in my hidden "orphans" folder. Eventually I'll replace it with a version that doesn't crop the lower margin so tightly.</p>

<p>Odd thing about this tree - it looks nothing like this in broad daylight. That extended skeletal arm and hand don't even exist in the way it appears here. It's actually a combination of two or more different limbs, and a sort of forced perspective. The effect only works in silhouette against the sunset sky. It appealed to me because it suited a common theme in fables, myths, fairy tales and gothic horror, in which heaths, moors, forests and similar places are treated as characters rather than merely places: Lovecraft's "blasted heath", Tolkien's "withered heath" and wild areas in 19th century metaphysical fiction are described as seeming to morph or transform.</p>

[eric_brody]

<p>I prefer vanilla to chocolate, or chocolate to vanilla, or "my favorite color is green...". That makes as much sense as saying I prefer color to black and white or vice versa. It is an inherently useless and meaningless question outside the context of a specific image and... even with a specific image some prefer one, some the other. This may seem like a rational discussion but it's really a waste of bandwidth, probably including my comments :-)</p>

[jordan2240]

<p>Eric,<br>

You could say the same about most of the discussions in this forum and especially those in the philosophy forum. In fact, most of what we say throughout our lives is probably meaningless dribble. But so what.</p>

<p>I do think this subject has a bit more depth than "I prefer chocolate over vanilla," as there most likely IS a preferred style in specific instances. Some might view this thread and gain a whole new perspective on their photography, experimenting with B&W or color where they hadn't before, possibly adding to their enjoyment of life. Aren't we all just trying to have fun?</p>

[danielheller]

<p>Eric - there are some of us who have a natural inclination towards one or the other (Color or B+W) and who prefer for whatever reason working mostly in one or the other. I was trying to find out what these preferences are based on and why it was that or the other way. And incidentally, the actual question (Color or B+W) was only to be based on the scenarios described in the six preceding rows to my final question.</p>

<p>Bill - You are correct in saying that the subject has a bit more depth than "I prefer chocolate over vanilla". There definitely is a preferred style in different instances, and I wanted to explore that by indicating the conditions that would lead to the preferred method. These conditions were described in the first six rows preceding the final question.</p>

<p>It seems to me that the conditions in the first six rows were not taken so much into consideration.I would have never just asked straight: What do you prefer Color or B+W?</p>

<p> </p>

[eric_brody]

<p>OK, OK, it's a legitimate discussion, and I certainly hope we're all having fun with our photography. If I had to depend on photography to eat, well,... I'd be thin. I've been at it a long time and still love every minute. Digital imaging has opened up a new world to me, actually a world of color, since previously I found color to be more than a bit challenging in the darkroom. Now my cameras take color images and I have the privilege of deciding whether to proceed in color or in monochrome (since I usually print my monochrome images with QTR so "black" and white does not really fit). I still maintain that the color-monochrome conundrum is image specific and yes, Bill Jordan, many of the discussions on this and other fora are quite mundane and likely a waste of bandwidth, but they certainly can be entertaining. </p>

[Jochen_S]

<p>B&W, because I'm fed up with color at work I won't do it for my own pleasure.<br>

- Color takes away the thrill of photographing things to find out how they look photographed.<br>

- Lansdscapes can be handled with MF / LF cameras and doing B&W processing and the exhibition prints in a domestic wet darkroom might be an option. - I don't have the means to generate the pixels for huge color prints.<br>

Bottom line: Its obviously a question of gear and workflow preferences. - I have no clue about the art market. - Maybe your gallery's owner could provide hints? - I assume going for an artsy less known color look might be an option for somebody who has a huge digital sensor and likes heavy postprocessing.</p>

 

[jordan2240]

<p>Dani,</p>

<p>I think you did get your answer, and that answer is 'it depends.' In the galleries I've been in, I've seen both. I have a friend who shoots landscape and sells at art shows, and he shoots primarily in color. Perhaps we can take example from one of my favorite filmmakers, Alexander Payne. His two most recent movies are 'The Descendants' and 'Nebraska.' Unfortunately "Nebraska" hasn't come out here, so I can only go by snippets I've seen, but both films feature complex, interesting characters. In 'The Descendants,' the land (Hawaii) is part of the story, and it was shot in color. Seeing sweeping landscapes in B&W wouldn't have the same visual impact for most as color. "Nebraska," I'm presuming, is primarily about the characters, and it was shot in B&W, perhaps to strip away anything that would distract from the interaction between those characters. Or I could be completely wrong.</p>

<p>I don't think you can make any generalizations about what comprises 'fine art' photography, so you might want to experiment and see what sells. I'd shoot in color by default though (in digital) because you can always take it away in post-processing.</p>

[lachaine]

<p>Why a pen and ink drawing rather than an oil painting? </p>