Children in Wales

Ians photo as POW has once again raised the BW/Colour and the b/w is more worthy debate.

 

I think that each generation of photographers is confronted with these issues and has to deal with them again on an individual basis. What troubles me is that the BW or Colour choice seems to be seen as a confrontational/adversarial relationship by many. For me that is not - nor should it be - the case.

 

I cant help sidetracking into the issue of realism in the BW/Colour controversy. The instant you press the shutter release and allow light to pass through the camera lens all reality flies out the window. Reality is not subject to lens artifacts and distortions, emulsion or CCD aberrations, compressed dynamic range or selective (or limited) depth of field. Reality is three dimensional and is viewed from perverse perspectives and angles that we ignore (or adjust for) in reality, which would be unacceptable in a photographic composition. Photography allows us to selectively view our world by isolating/editing away the visual noise that clutters our wide angle vision into a focussed composition It traps in 1/30 of a second a static instant from the dynamic flow of time. To my mind any discussion of reality when it comes to photography borders on pointless.

 

Photographs arent reality. Theyre pictures. I think many forget that photography is an interpretive medium. It is a means of communication. It is story telling. It is a visual art which transcends reality and in that transcendence gives each of us the chance to interpret our emotions (or our view of reality) to others. It can span - albeit feebly - the epistemological gap that divides us.

 

Oh, and did I mention that reality is in colour? As such, black and white is by far the more unrealistic. Its images are far more abstract. The real world of colour is shown in gradations of gray tones. The often radical changes in contrast that would result in abhorrence in colour photography (unless one is purposefully after abstraction) provide the interpretive tones that make b/w speak as eloquently as it does. Thus to my mind, b/ws further distance from reality allows a far greater interpretive result. Does that make it better then colour? I think not. Do I mean that colour is incapable of interpreting emotion? Of course not. Social documentary work seems to work best in b/w while more pictorial or decorative efforts are often enhanced by the use of colour. Yet these dogmas are often ignored - as they should be - with great success. Both are tools that need to be appropriately applied.

 

Why are paintings in colour? Would they be ennobled if they were rendered via the gray scale? How about de Vincis Lady with an Ermine in black and white; lets desaturate Hoppers Nighthawks; lets remove the color palette from Wyeths Christinas World or drain all those golds and browns from Rembrandts The Night Watch. Why has the world of painting not embraced the gray scale?

 

Photography is important to me. I dont care whether the images are produced using the colour or the black and white mode. I only care that the right mode is used.

 

Photography is painting. The film as our canvas, the light as our paint, and the camera is the tool or paintbrush we use. Film can either produce colour, or black and white images, and it is not up to the photogapher to chose the outcome of the images once film is loaded in. But if film is like our canvas, does that really make sense? Can a painting canvas predetermine if a painting will be in full colour or in black or white? No, it can't. It is up to the painter to chose how he/she wants the painting to look by buying the right paints. Don't get me wrong, a photographer can also chose if he/she wants their photos to be in black and white or colour, simply by purchasing the right film. But if the film is the canvas... On the other hand, a painter doesn't chose whether he/she wants her work to be in black and white or colour by buying the right canvas, because a canvas doesn't determine this. It is the paint that determines this. The right canvas for a desired painting is any canvas. In photogaphy if the film is our canvas, the right film is any film just like in painting. Also, if the light is our paint, does the light determine if the photo will be in black and white or colour once we have a film loaded in the camera that dictates the light regarless if the scene is colour or not? No, the film determines what the photo will look like.(Either in black and white or colour). So, the right light is any light. If this is all true, is there really such a thing as a bad photo? Nope, they're all good. The right photo is any photo.

I couldnt agree with you more regarding your comments about the monochromatic work of Leonardo and Rembrandt. (In fact, I am a huge admirer of Durers etchings and have had the pleasure of holding some of his original works in my own hand in the archives of a museum in Berlin in 1977)

 

However, the stark intensity and detail you justly ascribe to the works you cited doesnt make them any more valid or meaningful. It just makes them different.

 

The thrust of your observations here run parallel to something you submitted earlier in this forum:

 

There is a very widespread inclination, beyond photography and even beyond the arts, to hold that anything achieved with sparser means is purer, loftier, more refined. This is obviously a wild generalization, but sometimes there might be some truth in that principle

 

Simplicity is not, as I see it , exclusively the domain of the b/w photograph. A b/w photo can be just as cluttered as a cluttered colour work. If youre attributing simplicity exclusively to the use of b/w (or lack of colour) I think youre oversimplifying simplicity :) I believe that simplicity is achieved more by cropping and view point (and subject) then by the photographers choice of a gray scale or a colour palette. I do agree though - strongly - that simplicity is a virtue in either mode. Many photos fail because they show too much.

Way back, before Team POW got back to more important stuff (B&W vs. Color), Mr. Caird propounded a thesis on the nature of photography. I wondered at it (see above).

 

He later wrote: "it is my belief that the test of a photographer is the ability to realize intention through the medium" (snipped of tag that might cause more B&W vs. color...).

 

Mr. Caird, that says it, to me. It's liberating. What I can do, with a scanned slide, or telescope-CCD output, with Photoshop and printer, surely may seem like photography to me and my colleagues - "cum Musis deditus non sim, nosco quod amo"* - but it in no way stakes a claim to a higher (nor lesser) truth than held by those who hand-print IR or BW images.

 

(I use a Canon 4000 dpi scanner - THERE! I knew I could get Canon vs. Nikon into this thread!).

 

As an aside, Mr. Schuler, I'm utterly unsure of what "camp" you may think I belong to - but please don't attribute thoughts to me. I read your posts the way a pig looks a wristwatch - I think there's something there, but generally it eludes me.

 

--

 

*There is a lot of fondness for Latin here, so that's my contribution.

Whether it's B&W or color is immaterial. Consider a literary analogy: sonnets vs. blank verse. Great masterpieces can be achieved in either medium. What's important is that the intention is stated (usually this will be implicitly, rather than explicitly) within the art work. That is, the work sets out its own terms. Then we assess its success within those terms. Surely it's the same with B&W vs. Color photography?

 

 

As an uneducated, however, enthusiatic, photographer I just have to say this cracks me up.

First let me say I think Ian is a wonderful photographer, I like this photograph very much and there are others in his portfolio that just blow me away for the skill used in their creation.

With that said let me make a couple observations that I find humerous about this discussion.

Four weeks ago there was a POW called 'Thundercloud', it was a supersaturated, suburban, sceen of a spectacular natural event. This week there is 'Children in Wales', a desaturated, suburban, sceen of an event we envision as representing a wonderful time in our youth. Yet one photo was derided by some to death, one is heralded a 'masterpiece'. One a token of luck 'anyone could step out the back door and shoot this', one 'compositional genious', both were in all reality, by both photographers admission, snapshots. One proof that the elves aren't even of high enough intellect to work at a 'greeting card company', the other proof that the elves are keen to the insight of superior art. Can anyone tell us unlearned why desaturation is art and supersaturation is not? Both photographs have obvious flaws, neither Ian's nor Doug's photographs are free of distracting elements. I wonder if someday when we are all surrounded by 3 dimensional holographic images if we will look at 2-d color and clamor all over it for it's artistic representation. It really makes me chuckle.

And lastly, I can already feel my ears stinging...I see photography held up here as great art, and I have no doubt as to the work, eye, and just plain talent that goes into some photography, but if I could paint, I wouldn't take so many pictures, so don't get too carried away with yourselves. Some here have made fun of the digital photographers due to their ability to create images en masse, but don't even realize the rediculousness of such statements when viewed by people who do draw and paint (and please I know how old this argument is, it's just so funny to see it made over and over by self appointed intellects). One thing I have definately reaffirmed in my year of reading photo.net, 'artists' are among the most narrow minded of people on earth and photographers are no exception.

 

...but even so, you're quite right, most emulsions I use look better at 3000 dpi (or LESS) than at higher resolutions (unless you are working on a dissertation on the subject of "grain").

 

Time also seems to run backwards when scanning at full resolution...

 

I admit I like to use big files so that I get better control of color correction (Photoshop 16-bit mode), and so that I can make Super B-sized prints today.

 

Still, you're quite right, in my view - outside of our labs, I just don't find printers which really do such large prints justice.

 

 

Mainly, though, I just inserted that "exclamation" because we had a lot of fruitless debate going on - so I was just being bad and introducing another debating point. I'm disappointed only you even noticed, for which I thank you. I guess everyone "got" the Latin - I'll have to try harder next time.

That bears a little question 'cause it's so prevalent around here.

By what percentage do you estimate the average score for IR photography on photo.net would drop if the photograph were submitted in color?

I'm guessing 30% at least.

"James",

 

Frank Hurley could have told you the answer to that question. He didn't have a scanner (it was 1915, after all), but he did use 8x10 inch glass plates, or in a pinch (like when he was setting up to photograph the real "James Caird", about to set sail for South Georgia from Elephant Island) he used 5x4 inch glass plates. If most of his prints were only up to a maximum of 16x20 inches, why did he bother with such large size, high definition originals, especially when they caused so much trouble (e.g. lugging them several hundred miles from the wreck of the Endurance to Elephant Island) and cost so much money?

 

Because he could, "James", because he could.

 

P.S. All B&Ws too!

I believe that "cum Musis deditus non sim, nosco quod amo" translates more or less to "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like"

It became our motto when we caught the Buran out in open. I still use it all the time...I figure it helps students stay excited about modeling gamma ray flows around rotating black holes. What THEY figure is probably best left unexplored.

One thing I have definately reaffirmed in my year of reading photo.net, 'artists' are among the most narrow minded of people on earth and photographers are no exception.

Agreed. But keep in mind that those who express themselves feed on this ego, at least partly, for the energy they require for their creations.

Re another point you made, I don't see one art as being inherently superior to the next, though it's true some art forms are more widely appreciated than others, even within similar areas. And so, just for example, we have an opera diva, a torch singer and maybe a female rock 'n roll star. Does one of these artists practice a "higher" musical art than the others? If so, what are your standards, by what criteria do these standards measure themselves?

Going back to that shot of the shelf cloud: it was somewhat dramatic, at least the cloud part of it, but the rest was fairly low-order stuff. The fence and the grass were so over-saturated as to be an embarrassment to the server. Well, then you ask, "But is Ian's picture perfect?" Hardly. Yet at base I believe Ian has managed to come closer to realizing his "artistic truth" than the photographer of that other picture, not for the reason that Ian's photograph is B&W and the other color, but because the former image has much better inherent balance, and thus is capable of clearer (more readily understood, more readily appreciated) expression, each picture within its own context, of course.

Now I'm not about to shy away from this so-called issue (which I think is overblown in general and nonexistent for me) of B&W versus color so I'll suggest again, for anyone with interest, to destaturate the image in question and give it some time. Is this composition something you want to look at? For all I know maybe everyone will like it better in B&W. In that case there is indication that there was a problem all along with the color scheme of the image. Then again, maybe grayscale won't do it, maybe it'll make things worse. This in turn could imply that the composition is just not good enough to sustain interest. And so on.

No matter how that shakes out, it is easier to identify and make sense of composition without the distraction of color to cloud one's eye, emotions and mind.

Well, I think Ian's photo WAS as near to perfect as we're gonna see around these parts. And it engendered what was probably the greatest and widest discussion ever for a PoW.

 

For the record I don't think its composition was top-heavy. I think it brought two themes together (the kids and the houses... and all they enatail) in a novel, original and extremely satisfying way without overstatement. What more could you ask for, in B&W or color?

 

Thanks to you: Morwen, Brian, Mike, Vuk, Mary, Geraldine, Rienk, "James", Jeff, Daniel, Chris, Jim, Solly, Siobhan, Pradeep, Bert, Tomiko.... and even "thank you" Tris "The Professor" Schuler (and too many others to mention).

 

And, of course, thanks to Ian for being on that bridge with film in his camera.

 

Ian - is there to be another book of your photography? There certainly should be. It's been a while since "Village signs of north Cambridgeshire".

 

W

I agree with you Trevor,Ian is anthor photographer with simler style to Bill Brandt,like wise Chris from last week .

"Yes," said Wilson. "There's that. Doesn't do to talk too much about

all this. Talk the whole thing away. No pleasure in anything if you

mouth it up too much."

 

- Hemingway, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber

Mr. Morgan

 

Re: "Village signs of north Cambridgeshire", I am not the photographer of that publication. But thanks for asking.

Well, you shoulda been.

 

Now, then. Don't let that other Ian MacEachern catch you napping again.

 

M

 

 

 

9 9. Landscape and environmental and tonal range and lyrical and Bresson and Brandt and tri-x w/blown out highlights and and .... Definitely makes me want to get a Rollei. If I shot this with my t5 or Epic I fear it would have chosen too small an aperture, or too high a shutter speed, or the shutter delay would've missed the moment, etc. I've noticed a good few 40 mm perspective shots that I like a lot. Of course Bresson used a 50. I could pretend that my AE1 w/ a 50 1.4 is a Leica or Rollei 35 (or get the new one), but the AE1 is too large to treat like a Rollei. Oh well, I guess its not really the camera anyhow. With a pinhole, this is still a great shot.

I especially love the hypothetical brought up by Brian!

 

It's always seemed patently obvious to me that colour is natural, and B&W is what amounts to a photomanipulation.

 

In fact, a straight 2D image is less natural than a binocular image.

 

A zoomed image less natural than a wide-angle image.

 

I've always thought if you were a purist, you would only ever shoot with a wide-angle lens on colour film with no filters.

 

B&W? Bad.

 

Filters? Worse.

 

IR Film? Pure blasphemy.

 

But we're all artists, after all.

 

Tris: I should say that I also enjoy stopping in front of an old B&W photograph. It is history. But there's the difference. It really is history. I like to think about what it might've been like 80 years ago.

 

But one of the most interesting B&W set of pictures I've ever encountered... a man took THREE pictures of his subject, each with a Red, Green, and Blue filter over the lens.

 

Then, about a hundred years later (ie: in the past couple years) some guys with computers took the three negatives and composited them together to get a fullcolour image.

 

Ah! What beauty. To see history in full colour.

 

I shall ever be a shallow shadow of a human being. I shall only ever enjoy a colour photograph. What a tragedy.

I agree wholeheartedly with your comments! Some people need to "get over" themselves....

"Actually, my artistic knowledge is so tiny it could fit into the brain of an art critic" Michael Kilian

 

Cats can't fly

Congratulations on P.O.W., Ian. I would choose 20 other of your photos for that honor .... never thought this particular one would be their choice...well, anyway, you got plenty of visitors and that's good for B&W photography...all the butterfly & kodak moment catchers got to see da photography :0)

Fantastic shot. In the tradition of the photographers of Magnum (Rui Barros). Top Marks, great composition !!