Since first visiting this forum some time ago now I have seen many images from many fantastic photographers. Many of these images have come from "photo critique" posts.

I have been noticing a trend that is probably not that unexpected. I have noticed that usually, B&W images are preferred to colour images. e.g. I have seen some pretty plain B&W images receieve much praise, and some great colour images not. And vice versa. But people are preferring the B&W images. So why?

I think it is much simpler with B&W because the viewer is NOT distracted by colour and can more easily focus on the important elements, and the attention to the main highlight/subject in the photo is faster and more dramatic. B&W also tends to look more like art, which then makes the image look a little more creative.

Sure, all of the above can be applied to colour photography too, but challenges such as colour temperature and lighting become more difficult with colour. It just appears to me that you are more likely to get a successful shot if you shoot in B&W, as apposed to colour (as long as B&W suits the purpose and image type). I am not saying a colour photogrpher must be smarter than a B&W photographer, I am just saying that the chances of getting a successful shot "CAN" be improved (in many situations) by shooting B&W.

So yesterday I did a little test on some of my boring colour images, to see if I could make them look any better in B&W. Here are the results of one of my images: ori ginal

B &W

B&Wcropped

Try it too.

-- Kristian (leicashot@hotmail.com), April 19, 2002

Answers

i agree with you to some extent, but must chime in with the old cliché "crap in, is crap out" (this is not referring to your picture - which you even said isn't great - just a general statement). I think B&W may work better for the leica photographers at this forum (in general), but my perception of the "general public" is that they like color photos more the B&W ones... so this goes more to the audience then the picture itself.

-- Matthew Geddert (geddert@yahoo.com), April 19, 2002.

I think color adds another dimension that can be used well or poorly. If used well, it adds; if poorly, it detracts. A lot of color images use color for the sake of color, but not particularly relating to anything about reinforcint the power of the subject. In that context, it's a distraction and a defect, in my opinion.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), April 19, 2002.

B&W creates moody photos,colour creates interest.A boring image will always be boring,cropping can make a difference.

-- Allen Herbert (allen1@btinternet.com), April 19, 2002.

"Everything looks worse in black and white...Give us those nice bright colors; give us the greens of summers: Makes you think all the world's a sunny day: I gotta N---- camera, I love to take a photograph; So Mama don't take my Kodachrome away." - Paul Simon, KODACHROME.

Color has such a psychological impact that even songwriters notice it.

Photographs are abstractions of reality - they reduce a 3D, sound- filled, motion-filled, 360-degree panoramic, colorful world to a 2D, silent still rectangle. Removing the color is just carrying that abstracting process one step further.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), April 19, 2002.

Kristian, buddy, sorry to jump in on your post again, but damn man, you ask interesting questions! In reality, very, very few posters to this forum are doing b&w. They're sending it out to some god awful lab and then acting like they know what the hell they're talking about. To me, you're only doing b&w if you're developing and printing your film. And with scanners now, you don't even have to print. So what's developing a b&w negative amount too? Maybe an initial investment of $50, and 20 minutes at the kitchen sink. All to often, I read threads discussing the advantages of using this film or that film, and shooting at this EV or that EV, and using this developer or that developer, and I know the posters do not have a clue as to what they're talking about. Or a clue about how El Cheapo Lab is developing and printing their film. But I bit my tongue, and allow them to have their bit of fun. So why not just shoot color film or slides? I don't get it. (So how about you Kristian, going to do the real thing, or just bs the group?) P.S.(Hope no ones trades you for your 90mm, and forces you to use it!) Bessa L, Voigtlander Skopar 25mm, B+W KR6, T-Max 400 in Xtol 1:1

-- Glenn Travis (leicaddict@hotmail.com), April 19, 2002.

I think color adds another dimension that can be used well or poorly. If used well, it adds; if poorly, it detracts. A lot of color images use color for the sake of color, but not particularly relating to anything about reinforcint the power of the subject. In that context, it's a distraction and a defect, in my opinion.

yeah, what Michael said. Too often color is just "there", something the photographer forgot (or was too lazy) to remove. If a photograph is going to be color, the color has to add to the message in the picture, otherwise it's just needless clutter.

-- Douglas Herr (telyt@earthlink.net), April 19, 2002.

B&W is easy and cheap to develop and (wet) print at home. Also, a lot of conservative (reactionary?) photographers cannot bring themselves to learn new tricks or explore new techniques.

IMO we see in colour, therefore we should photograph what we see.

BTW, I exapnd on this in the essay which accompanies my (colour) Everyday Life project.

-- Andrew Nemeth (azn@nemeng.com), April 19, 2002.

Well, Andrew, neither does anyone "see" in infrared, so I guess by your reasoning infrared would be even less desirable than ordinary b&w work. Frankly, I don't see a fine print as being "better" or "worse" by the degree to which it approaches or diverges from what would be considered realistic / true to life.

-- Art Waldschmidt (afwaldschmidt@yahoo.com), April 19, 2002.

IMO we see in colour, therefore we should photograph what we see

Why? When did photography have to be what we see? It never will be, so what's the point? If I have astigmatism, should my photos look like what I see with astigmatism? What films show what we see? Why are there so many films if we are supposed to photograph what we see?

For what it's worth, I never (with one exception) turn color photos into black and white. They don't look the same and the prints don't fit with what I show. The one exception was when Kodak blew a roll of my Kodachrome (and has been giving me free Kodachrome and processing ever since) and I salvaged this shot from its sorry state:

Hot Tub, Copyright 2001 Jeff Spirer

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), April 19, 2002.

I agree with the "I think color adds another dimension that can be used well or poorly. . ." statement. I think the effective use of color in documentary photos (like Rob Appleby's recent Digital Journalist series in India) is especially impressive.

I disgree that color film necessarily is a better reflection of reality. The way colors are rendered on film is seldom a very accurate portrayal of the how my eyes saw the colors in the scene.

-- Mike Dixon (mike@mikedixonphotography.com), April 19, 2002.

I believe that the greater the art the greater its INTEGRITY. Every characteristic reenforces the whole work. If one is making a portrait and a table is visible in the background, that table might contribute to the whole photograph by providing a compositional element that makes the whole composition work; it might add to the perception of the subject's character by showing something of his environment, OR it might serve only to distract and weaken the photograph. Therefore it would be untrue to say that a table should always be included in a portrait, and equally untrue to say that a table should never be included in a portrait. The same is true of the color/monochrome choice for any individual photograph......Which is another way of saying that I agree with Michael Darnton and Doug Herr.

-- Ollie Steiner (violindevil@yahoo.com), April 19, 2002.

Just to throw in my 2 cents: When I have a color film loaded I "see" color photographs, when I have a b&w film loaded I "see" b&w photographs. When I make two excursions in the same spot (take a town or an island) once with the color and once with the b&w film I will get back with two totally different portfolios, not only aestetically but also subjectwise.

On the psychological side, I think that with a b&w picture being an ever stronger abstraction it more clearly signals that reality has been filtered by a reproduction process and, more importantly selected by another viewers choice. It therefore invites us more easily to stop and "read" it in order to find out about what has been filtered and ultimately selected. It more obviously contains a "message" of some sort, which like in other media is an abstraction of plain reality. But, and finally, I think it is as easy to produce a dull (i.e. messageless) "pretender" b&w photograph as it is hard to make a color shot that catches and transmits the essence instead of just reproducing the obvious surface. Cheers.

-- Lutz Konermann (lutz@konermann.net), April 20, 2002.

I like this quote from a book on Medieval Drawings:

"... The principal differnence for the observer between a drawing and a painting is in the amount of information each gives: a drawing tells one nothing about colour, and often nothing about the modelling of the forms. But drawings are not therefore interpreted as being flat and colourless any more than a black-and-white photograph is thought to depict a scene whose natural colours are monochrome; the imagination supplies these deficiencies, and what is seen is the real world expressed through a convention of colourlessness. Reality is more effectively evoked through suggestion than through statement."

Says it for me.

-- Margaret (fitz@neptune.fr), April 20, 2002.

Jeff, great shot. Margaret, nice quote. And I disagree w/ Lutz completely. I used to try to "see" B&W when I shoot B&W, & "see" color when I shoot color. I've concluded it's all bull. Now I see the image in its entirety (or try, that is), focusing on the structure or geometry of the image, the framing, the moment. To hell w/ the color & lack of. As Mike Dixon says above, color film rarely renders the color of the actual scene we shoot anyway... Now I shoot Fuji NPC 400, scan the negs & almost always play w/ saturation, intensity & colors in PS before deciding what color (or even lack of color) I like. Kristan's experiment is provoking, but it illustrates what many of us are now using as a normal tool that was never available before digital photography became reality. The image is all that matters, but: the image can be many things from the same neg, & the photog ultimately makes that artistic decision before going public w/ it... Nice topic!

-- Patrick (pg@patrickgarner.com), April 20, 2002.

Yes, B&W can render powerful pictures. Remember Ansel Adams?? However, he used large format cameras, exposed, developed and printed using the Zone system, and did his own printing. (BTW: PBS is running a special Ansel Adams documentary tomorrow evening at 9:00 pm - - - I'm gonna' watch it!).

Unfortunately, many of us just do not have the space, developing/drying equipment, darkrooms and zone system training needed to turn out superior B&W prints. Additionally, developing and printing chemistry and darkrooms demand a high degree of WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor < grin >)

So, for many of us,color slides or negatives get the call by default.

-- George C. Berger (gberger@his.com), April 20, 2002.

I disagree w/ Lutz completely

Well, that would be fine with me, Patrick (not all of us are born equal...;o) - but you just report on a different personal receptional sensitivity in regard to b&w vs. color. What about the other observations I made? Agree or disagree - and if, why? Bests.

-- Lutz Konermann (lutz@konermann.net), April 20, 2002.

I use and appreciate both don't limit your vision.. Have potraits that are beautiful with and others without color.. appreciate the light try to work with the vision it gives you.. don't like to sound so zen-like but that's what it is!!!

-- gary brown (drdad1111@yahoo.com), April 20, 2002.

Everyone here is right in their own rights, but I do very much agree with Glenn. That shooting in B&W doesn't mean you're doing it all. Developing B&W is it's own art in itself and it takes a vast amount of skill to be able to work a print till it is the way you'd like. And that is something I need to persue further. I haven't printed my own B&W in 5 years, but I've only shot two rolls in this time. Better get a dark room started when I get into a bigger unit.

But it is interestint to see my own colour shots that I felt weren't very successful in B&W and actually be happy with them.

-- Kristian (leicashot@hotmail.com), April 20, 2002.

Patrick wrote (in part):

I used to try to "see" B&W when I shoot B&W, & "see" color when I shoot color. I've concluded it's all bull. Now I see the image in its entirety (or try, that is), focusing on the structure or geometry of the image, the framing, the moment.

Completely agree. And for me all images are in colour, because that is what I see and how my eyes work. I'm interested in as being as faithful to a scene I photograph as I possibly can. An abstraction into B&W strikes me as being as false as overt digital manipulation.

I mean, if you're prepared to throw away the colour of an scene, then logically what is to stop you from also photoshop'ing it out of all recognition?...

-- Andrew Nemeth (azn@nemeng.com), April 20, 2002.

"The photograph isn't what was photographed. It's something else. It's a new fact." --Garry Winogrand

A two-dimensional representation of a tiny slice of time from a particular perspective with a certain field of view taken at a particular instant is already a profound abstraction. Looking at photo has only the barest similarity to the way we look at real-life situations. If I get up and walk into my kitchen, it's true that I'll be closer to Alaska, but the difference in distance between my desk and my kitchen is in no way the difference between being close to Alaska or far from Alaska.

-- Mike Dixon (mike@mikedixonphotography.com), April 20, 2002.

Well said, Mike. If photography wasn't about abstraction, I must have missed the point for the past 30 years.

-- Lutz Konermann (lutz@konermann.net), April 21, 2002.

... ah yes, but there is a world of difference between "abstraction" and falsehood! ;?)

-- Andrew Nemeth (azn@nemeng.com), April 21, 2002.

I agree that there's a difference between abstraction and falsehood; in fact, my point was that they are different qualities. I accept that using color film allows you to better express your vision; I don't accept that using color film produces images that are inherently more "truthful."

-- Mike Dixon (mike@mikedixonphotography.com), April 21, 2002.