A question on B&W

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My question is for all you B&W experts out there:

Do you have to THINK B&W when you SHOOT B&W? The reason I ask this is because I've been taking some B&W photos recently (I've always used colour), and the results are not very good to say the least. Sometimes I'll get a shot that I know would be "good" in colour, but when I see the result in B&W, it becomes dull and uninteresting.

Anyone have any thoughts on this matter?

Thx

-- Jay Lunig (jlunig@hotmail.com), May 30, 2002

Answers

I have had exactly the same experience. It takes a lot of thought and practice to "see" in black and white, and ignore what our eyes are telling us through the seeing of color. When I am lucky enough to take the rare good picture in black & white (other than a picture of a family memeber), it is because I was focusing on some basic graphic principles (i.e., line, shape, texture) that didn't involve the element of color.

I think I'll be working on this for the rest of my life.

-- Ben Crabtree (bcrabtree@mn.rr.com), May 30, 2002.


Seeing in light and dark, contrast and texture comes from practice, experimentation, and experience.

Go buy a brick of chromogenic black and white (like XP2super or T400CN). Shoot a roll a week for the next 20 weeks. Have fun with it, and don't get upset if you have some flubs. You'll have some good ones too... try to see and understand what made them stand out from the rest.

Also, if you have some scanned images and a program like Photoshop, try taking the color information out of them, and see how they look, as a learning tool. Then, try to select some images that you have that WOULD look good in B&W, and take the color out of them as a test to see how you're progressing.

-- Charles (cbarcellona@telocity.com), May 30, 2002.


I am far from being an expert, but I think that, yes, you have to "think" in B&W. It means that, first,you have to "not see in color". You must not allow yourself to be lured by color. You have to see shapes, textures, tones and contrasts. But most of all, much more than in color, I think, you have to see the substance, not only the form. That's what makes B&W so much fun and so challenging. Keep at it, it'll come and it'll be very rewarding.

-- Olivier (olreiche@videotron.ca), May 30, 2002.

While there are obvious basic differences between color and B&W, such as colors translating into different (sometimes unexpected) shades of gray, often the dissatisfaction in the prints is the fault of the printer, or errors in exposure. Most one-hour shops do a poor job on B&W, often because the automatic analysis of the negative doesn't provide full blacks in the print, giving them a washed out look. You may have better luck with a pro lab that does B&W work, and actually looks at the negatives.

If the original scene was interesting in a non-color way, it will be good in B&W, too - often, even better because of the abstraction that B&W provides. If, however, the vibrancy of the original scene was a result of the colors present, experience, and perhaps a bit of filtration to adjust how the colors translate, may be required. It's difficult to be more precise without actually seeing the prints you are referring to, of course. Take a look at Kodak's booklet on filters, and you'll get a better idea of how colors translate, and how filters can be used to modify that treatment.

-- Ralph Barker (rbarker@pacbell.net), May 30, 2002.


I think so much in B&W that it's nearly impossible for me to shoot reasonably worthwhile color shots--I almost don't even notice color in the world, in fact, or at least it doesn't make much impression on me. . . and I'm definitely not colorblind. Go figure. Just too many years avoiding it, I guess.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), May 30, 2002.


Jay: Yes, the same as the others, you need to learn to think in Beautiful Breathtaking Grey. Have you tried taking a set of shots of a color scale and had them processed to see if you are getting a full tonal range from your shots? Low contrast ruins many otherwise good B&W shots. Another thought is to use some contrast enhancing filters, orange or possibly red.

Keep working on it.

-- Mark Johnson (logical1@catholic.org), May 30, 2002.


Michael!!,........and I thought I was the only one who worked like that!!!!

-- Art Waldschmidt (afwaldschmidt@yahoo.com), May 30, 2002.

I would think that every time you look at a scene and try to imagine how the final b&w print will look, then actually see the print and compare it with what you imagined, you gain a little skill at previsualising. The feedback of seeing the finished print makes your next previsualization more accurate. Lately I've been doing only b&w and, although I'll surely do color again, I feel, frankly, a little disinclined to shoot color right now. I guess I don't want to risk upsetting my efforts to imagine what I see as if it were monochrome. Often, when I don't have my camera, I'll just look at something and try to imagine it as a b&w print. There seems to be some value in doing even that, as an exercise. -Ollie http://www.web-graphics.com/steinerphoto

-- Ollie Steiner (violindevil@yahoo.com), May 30, 2002.

Regardless of the kind of camera you are using, photographing in black and white can be disappointing when you first begin. This can be even more disappointing if you get quick-prints at mini labs run by persons who have no idea of what B/W should look like. Fuji Frontier is the only Mini-lab system I know of that can run good quality B/W from all B/W negs with a knowledgable operator.

The only way to do black and white to it's fullest quality, however, is to do it yourself, and that means setting up a darkroom and taking courses on how to do it. Color now days is really an "auto" operation and will give good results in most cases. B/W is not the same...though 50 years ago it was the opposite.

Don't give up...but you do need to find a truly fine B/W custom lab or learn to do B/W yourself very good.

The image above is a direct scan from a Fuji Frontier proof print taken with Ilford XP-2 Super, printed by a qualified operator.

-- Todd Frederick (fredrick@hotcity.com), May 31, 2002.


I've been shooting b&w almost exclusively for so long now that is has become second nature. In my experience, I tend to "see" things more in terms of shapes, light and dark, and contrast variations. If anything I have just the opposite problem now. On the rare occasions that I do shoot color, I get my prints or slides back from the processor and wonder why I bothered using color emulsion.

when you shoot b&w, it helps if you're thinking not of the "literal" image, but instead, your interpretation of it.

*shrug* Keep it up, and you wonder how you ever saw the world in color. b~

-- Bob (bobflores@attbi.com), May 31, 2002.



Like Olivier (and others) said - it's more a negative (no pun) process - you need to 'subtract' color from your seeing rather than 'adding' B& W somehow.

I've never thought much about it - just did it - but that could be because when I started photography I shot almost nothing BUT B&W for 4 years in college - and very slowly transitioned into color. So my primary 'eye' training always ignored color from the beginning.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), May 31, 2002.


Yes, Jay, I do think in terms of B&W when I shot B&W. I switch to color only if colors suddenly attract my attention and I realize that it is the very color that matters. I confitm that "thinking B&W" and "thinking color" are two completely different ways of "seeing", different frames of mind.

-- Andrey Vorobyov (AndreyVorobyov@hotbox.ru), May 31, 2002.

Just wanted to say thanks to all those who contributed answers. I guess the answer is to PRACTICE more.

-- JL (jlunig@hotmail.com), May 31, 2002.

Many great answers here, that make me feel very connected to all of you b&w photographers. I fully subscribe to practice (may-be over years, decades...?). But you shouldn't force yourself to marry b&w without falling in love with it - which in most cases happens quite naturally. ;o)

A tool that helps to start learning about structures, contrast and graphical power of a view is a Kodak or Tiffen looking glass, or even a strong neutral density filter (ND9, 39mm, is handy). If you don't have it with you even squinting your eye is of help to mimic a b& w outcome of a shot - not tonally, but graphically, which b&w is much about. Cheers.

-- Lutz Konermann (lutz@konermann.net), May 31, 2002.


Many great answers and much fine thought on this thread.

I have always believed there's a good reason why traditionally people have learned photogroahy through black and white first. Not because it's been around longer, although some might argue that that's a worthy enough reason ( I would not). But you learn to see LIGHT. It's all about light and dark- just like the Italian masters in the beginning of the renaissance- chiarroscurro. To learn to photograph at all is to learn to really observe light- and also learn the craft and techniques to capture it with a tool and render it in silver, and apply it to a print. B+W is so direct with this. It's real wonder to study the achievments of folks like Minor White, George Tice, Ansel Adams, Alfred Stieglitz. These guys weren't happy wth the hap-hazard method of jsut exposing film, getting silver to come up on it, and making a simple print- they developed this whole system of technique, to know what you are getting. I'm not even talking about their relative merits as artisits, even, but the things they have taught us. If we are to learn anything in this craft, I recommend the road map they have provided. And we have the benfit of reams and reams of information they and so many others have witten about how to work this craft, to learn to know what you are going to get.

Cool.

Color work is in a way derivative, and also more refined, in that we are making distinction between colors of light- the bandwidth of the rays- and our eyes do this naturally! even unconsiously for most.

So B+W photography is not adding or removing- for me it is looking at light and rendering it into shade and tone, and understanding how it works. Forget color- don't even try to put it out of your mind! Just look at the light. (Then, the fun begins when you figure out how filters work...talk about knowledge of color...)

-- drew (swordfisher@hotmail.com), May 31, 2002.



A lot of noise about nothing, IMO.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), May 31, 2002.

Hi, Jay:

I come from the slides world and am presently doing B&W only.

My begining experience was very much like your own and my B&W photography began improving only after I got used to consider my subjects only in terms of tones and read about the zone system.

Though I'm not zone system expert it was a great help to learn how to look at the subject and make a better measurement/appraisal of light.

Maybe all the above comes close to what you call "to think in B&W", so that my basic answer to your question is YES.

Regards, Jay. Don't give up.

-Iván

-- Iván Barrientos M (ingenieria@simltda.tie.cl), May 31, 2002.


Ah,fiinally, Rob, I was wondering when and where the dismissive comment would show. Funny how not one thread can go by without at least one person saying how useless and crap it is. If that makes you feel alive and a plus to this forum, good for you. IMO.

-- Olivier (olreiche@videotron.ca), May 31, 2002.

Ilford FP4 that was bought in 1977 ; film expired in 1981; New Zealand photo shot in 1991...North Island adventures! Film had been frozen since purchase; kodak anti fog used in development...I used the FP4 when my brick of Panatomic-X 120 was used up on that trip..

-- Kelly Flanigan (zorki3c@netscape.net), May 31, 2002.

The detail photos were scanned in at 2400dpi with my new Epson 2450 photo scanner.....here the sharpness of the detail photos is limited by the scanners dpi of "only" 2400...The negative when looked thru a microscope shows the faces alot more clearly...Maybe someday I will get a 4000dpi 2 1/4 scanner cheap!....

-- Kelly Flanigan (zorki3c@netscape.net), May 31, 2002.

What fooled me at first was color contrasts: red/green, blue/green, blue/red, etc. They stand out in color, and go absolutely flat in B&W. Learn to stay away from those, it's a start.

Look for tonal contrasts (light and dark), texture and textural contrasts, line, structure, and scenes that are monochromatic to begin with. Again, it's a start. As you progress, you'll discover other things on your own.

I also recommend at least a yellow filter for outdoors, and plenty of exposure.

-- Steven Hupp (shupp@chicagobotanic.org), May 31, 2002.


"If that makes you feel alive and a plus to this forum, good for you. IMO."

Sorry, Olivier, I didn't realise this was a group therapy session.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), May 31, 2002.


Really, Rob? I would have sworn that's exactly what you were looking for.

-- Olivier (olreiche@videotron.ca), May 31, 2002.

Well, no more nor less than anyone else here, I suppose.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), May 31, 2002.

I have found that this viewing filter helps:

http://www.calumetphoto.com/default.taf? pageload=/calumet/prodindex.taf~ItCat0=02~by=~alphastr=~mfg=~ItCat1=~ Cat0=Camera% 20Accessories~_function=default&_UserReference=A549204B1E3882343CF7CA 64

-- Gregory Goh (GregoryGoh@hotmail.com), May 31, 2002.


Rob: didn't understand the need for hostility/defensiveness, from a gifted photographer like you. Must have been a rough day, Eh? We know you're good.

Jay: One of my great teachers, Joe Angert of the St. Louis Community College system, said that in order to justify color over black & white, the color should hit you before the form & content of the picture. So, for Joe, good B&W lies in form & content. I would add gradation. I would say that a good B&W shot needs to be captivating in and of itself, independent of the subject matter. It grabs you as an image, per se, more so than as a carbon copy of reality.

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), May 31, 2002.


I use the viewing filter Gregory recommended and find it very useful. It helps to visualize how the colors will translate into shades of gray.

-- Jack Matlock (jfmatlo@attglobal.net), May 31, 2002.

I think that one of the great teachers of "thinking in B&W" was Ansel Adams. Though he specialized in landscapes and worked with large format, his theories on the zone system are based on the assumption that you are working in and thinking in B&W. The zone system allows one to bend light (photographically speaking) and create images that follow your "visualization".

He also separated the process into an understanding of camera, negative and print, because each of these elements had an impact on the final outcome (the image as viewed by others).

Whenever I view his work, I'm impressed with his ability to subtely manipulate something as straightforward as a landscape and make that image unique. As much as we all may want to be a mirror of reality, his images have a power and emotion that say much more to me than a mere reproduction of what the eye sees.

One of his most influential books was "Yosemite and the Range of Light." The name says it all. Understanding and controlling that range, from bright white reflections to "velvet" black and all the grays in between, give the photographer much more power in influencing the viewer.

Cheers, Pat .

-- Pat Dunsworth (pdunsworth@aryarch.com), June 01, 2002.


I didn't feel particularly defensive, except for when I was being attacked by Olivier for having expressed an opinion.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough about what my opinion on this subject is, though.

I see here the usual stuff about BW being more about graphic composition, while colour is more about prettiness and more, somehow, superficial. I happen to think this is nonsense. I believe that the same criteria really apply to colour and BW photography - i.e. strong composition, strong content, good light and so on. As I said eklsewhere, I don't think colour is an adjunct to a photograph, something that sits on top of the above qualities; it is simply part of the picture. Do you need to "think" in colour or black and white? Neither, in my opinion. Certainly I never have, and I've done plenty of both black and white and colour snapping. It never even occurs to me to think about colour as something separate from what I'm seeing, just as I never used to think about grey when I was snapping in black and white. So that's why I said - a lot of noise about nothing.

Of course, I don't take pictures of rocks, so I can see that the approach there may be different - black and white can definitely give a very sensual and rich look to that sort of subject. But I really can't think of any photography - except for zone system stuff, where the effect is almost entirely dependent on the special characteristics of BW and is more a technical trick than anything else - that wouldn't be just as good, if not better, in colour. Think of The Americans in colour - I could see it in stark, grainy fast slide colour. Or even cross-processed! IMO, when it comes to photography of social subjects, there is no advantage to BW, except for the fact that, being BW with it's long history of great photographers working in that medium, it has a cachet which colour doesn't have. And that can often serve to validate otherwise mediocre photography - a lot of Salgado's work comes to mind here (ha!). And then there are the tired old tricks of burnt in skys, etc. - it seems that any picture taken by a VII photographer has to have dark skies and a brooding, menacing look. It's formulaic and phoney, I think. They're like a camera club imitating themselves.

Frankly, most of the BW I see from people who espouse the medium on this and many other fora, is pretty muddy, uninteresting stuff. There are some gems, of course. But aren't people tired of seeing the same old dark grey skies? They hurt my eyes.

So, Jay, why does black and white look dull and uninteresting to you? - because it is, most of the time. You have to resort to technical tricks to make black and white interesting in most cases, whereas colour slide is either beautiful straight from the lab or there's nothing to be done. And this is another reason why BW is so overvalued - the conviction that if you have spent three days working in the darkroom with Mahler playing and snorting coke to keep awake, then when you emerge, the epic print that results is somehow more valuable than a slide you just got back from the lab. Well, it isn't. Either one of them is just a picture and how much work and skill went into them is totally unimportant.

The fact is that certain pictures, like WES madwoman and so on, could only be done in black and white because they are such distortions of reality - but then they achieved the status of icons of truth! In fact they are distortions and nothing more, nice pictures, no doubt, but really just cheap (if labour-intensive!) tricks. Of course you can drama and "soul" out of a snap if you dodge and burn the hell out it! But that is just trickery.

Having said all that, I like black and white, and I have a project in mind I want to shoot in that medium. But I don't expect to have somehow penetrated deeper to the meat of the subject that way.

-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), June 01, 2002.


Rob,

Read your last post earlier today and am surprised you haven't received any replies so far. Well, first of all, be assured I very much like your photography. You should know that. And I very much appreciate your contributions, too. You usually hit the nail and your posts are cosmopolitan and open minded. But as for "noise" - your first post on this thread was precisely that...!

Your second re-established my high esteem of your intellect. Still, I think you're missing something. Please contradict me, if you feel to do so.

I think you have demonstrated well enough that you can see in color and that you know how to translate a colorful world into (or better: onto?) color film stock. Period. (Besides, I have seen some of your b&w work and I think that you can see b&w and translate into that medium, too.)

You argue that reality is in color, so using b&w technique in order to translate it into an image is just a cheap trick. Are you serious? You ask us to imagine Frank's "The Americans" taken in grainy color slides - while I think I can, what would the use of grainy color slide be other than a different "trick" to translate reality into something different from reality, i.e. into an image? In this case interpreting reality with the help of an equally strong medium of abstaraction as the specific one you propose. Why not Provia? Too "realistic"??!

What about Van Gogh? Is he playing cheap tricks on us? What about etchings, drawings, charcoal, pastels, woodcuts? Too tricky?

Aren't techniques of abstraction (leave alone the reduction of a 360 degree, 3D, sounding, smelling and moving world into a static, two-dimensional and framed photograph) purely a very personal matter of looking at reality? Do we need a dogma here?

Back to the original question: Yes, I have an aquired way of seeing b&w images. I'm not as good at seeing color images. BTW, I personally reckon it to be much more difficult to make an outstanding color photograph than an outstanding b&w photograph.

There are many other points in your latter post which I can fully subscribe to, though. Understanding an image, sensing, feeling it, you name it, before creating it, be it in color or b&w, is essential and many times overlooked.

PS.: I'm just having a weekend break during a movie shoot. We shoot color, cause that's the standard nowadays. I was brought up seeing and photographing b&w pics. Which most obviously shaped my way of seeing a lot. The only aspect that makes it barable for me to shoot in color is the fact that I can exercise a strong influence on reality by creating sets and lightings with the help of the set designer and the DOP, i.e. by selecting and transforming reality before color hits the stock.

Have a wonderful and sunny weekend and keep up your great work. Yours.

-- Lutz Konermann (lutz@konermann.net), June 01, 2002.


Lutz, thanks for your reply.

The first thing I should say is that I'm not against BW or even W Eugene Smith! However, I think we should make a distinction between photography and the visual arts in general. Of course, van Gogh wasn't tricking anyone, he was simply painting. But painting has only occasionally had the role of unmediated representation, and by the end of the 19th century, it had already left that largely behind - at least as far as I understand it.

Photography always has the promise of being a truthful representation of what's in front of the lens - and in a sense, of course, it always is, even if what's in front of the lens is an assemblage or whatever (Witkin comes to mind). However, in the area of documentary in particular, I think there is an implicit contract between the photographer and his audience.

My point was that BW has acquired the status of being uniquely truthful, or in some sense, penetrating - which is strange, because the strength of  black and white is precisely its openness to manipulation - indeed, dodging and burning are virtually de rigeur - and the classic, iconic BW pictures are often the most manipulated. I believe this applies as much to Ansel Adams as to WES.

Anyway, leaving that aside, and to address the question that started off the thread, I myself don't ever think about colour or black and white, whatever I'm shooting. I am always concerned just with the content, and if my photography is at all valid, it is the content that makes it so - at least, I would hope so. And I really do think that that is what makes the difference in photography, whether BW or colour.



-- rob (rob@robertappleby.com), June 01, 2002.

Rob -

While everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I agree with some of what you say in your "expanded" post, I believe some of your conclusions may be based on a narrow perspective of the underlying issues here.

Various perspectives can always be taken when discussing photography in general, and the choice between color and B&W specifically. A more abstract approach, however, might be to consider the nature of the content of the image, and the photographer's motivation for committing the scene to film. Your work, for example, is strongly content driven - that is to say you are focusing on the people, their situations, and the associated emotions that are likely to be evoked in the viewers of your work. With content-oriented work, color or B&W can often work equally well, although color is technically more "realistic". For others, the concentration and fascination is with the graphic aspects of shape, color and so forth.

In contrast to those two approaches, for (I believe) a large percentage of people, photography is about trying to convey the emotions they feel for a scene in a compelling way - essentially trying to capture what they feel at that point in time, in the hopes of someone else feeling the same way. All too often, the subject matter of these photographs can be seen as mundane or boring. Or, perhaps the presentation is jsut boring, even though the photographer is attempting to make it more compelling.

For the purpose of this thread, however, I think it helps to consider what it is about the scene that makes us want to capture it on film. Are we reacting to the colors in the scene, or is it the majesty of the shapes, or the emotional situation of the people in the scene. Once we understand what we find compelling about the scene, we can choose an appropriate medium (color or B&W in this case), and proceed with decisions about how we want to convey the subject matter. In all cases, however, we are distorting reality because we are interpreting the scene and presenting our slant on the content. We are deciding what the "decisive moment" is, and are presenting that as fact. Even if we are shooting video, we are deciding where to point the camera, and thus distort reality by that selection.

When discussing a (here, Leica-oriented) photographic issue, I think it is more helpful for us to step out of the confines of our individual photographic subject-matter or style preferences, and consider the issue in more global or universal terms. Doing so tends to eliminate the personality conflicts (my subject matter/style is better than your subject matter/style) that otherwise result.

Of course, that's only my opinion.

-- Ralph Barker (rbarker@pacbell.net), June 01, 2002.


Whatever you do, don't desaturate digital images or scanned slides and call it B&W -- it's not! IMO, the true value of B&W, besides the intangibles, is the print itself, which can be the most powerful part of photography.

-- R.J. (rfox@aarp.org), June 04, 2002.

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