When shooting digital capture, I'm almost always "thinking in color" so only make pictures where the color is essential to the design. But recently I ran into a couple of situations where I really liked the light and space, but not the color of the scene. Usually this means I'd pass on the situation, but this time I realized that if I had a view camera along, or a Leica loaded with Tri-X, I'd make the picture in b&w. So why not try a capture and then a conversion? I haven't made up my mind whether I really like them or not, but thought they'd be interesting to post.
My experience is, that pictures looking good in color, often look good in b&w.
OK, there are situations where you can't control color, where color is working against your subject.
If you can not accentuate your main subject by color, it is mostly possible to accentuate it in b&w. Although all of my pictures are made in color, I like the abstraction of b&w.
Is "reading" a b&w-photo a more intellectual achievement? I'm not quite shure: Cartier-Bresson said, that he found more emotion in b&w than in color …
I think this is perceptual more than technical. For many years I did most of my personal work in b&w (though my commercial illustration was nearly all color on transparency film). When I began doing digital capture/digital printing around 4 years ago, it was the quality of color results that drew me in (I'd never been fond of darkroom color prints). In b&w, I had to learn to make pictures that didn't rely on subject colors to "work." In color I had to make sure subject color worked for and not against the point of the picture. When I've experimented converting my captures to b&w, I always miss the color component. When shooting film, I never carried b&w and color to choose between them subject by subject, so perhaps this is a knack I simply haven't learned.
Winsted, Connecticut
4 comments:
Carl,
as I don't remember b/w-phtos in Working Pictures, would you please explain, why you have converted this picture in b/w?
Greetings!
Hi Martin,
When shooting digital capture, I'm almost always "thinking in color" so only make pictures where the color is essential to the design. But recently I ran into a couple of situations where I really liked the light and space, but not the color of the scene. Usually this means I'd pass on the situation, but this time I realized that if I had a view camera along, or a Leica loaded with Tri-X, I'd make the picture in b&w. So why not try a capture and then a conversion? I haven't made up my mind whether I really like them or not, but thought they'd be interesting to post.
My experience is, that pictures looking good in color, often look good in b&w.
OK, there are situations where you can't control color, where color is working against your subject.
If you can not accentuate your main subject by color, it is mostly possible to accentuate it in b&w.
Although all of my pictures are made in color, I like the abstraction of b&w.
Is "reading" a b&w-photo a more intellectual achievement?
I'm not quite shure: Cartier-Bresson said, that he found more emotion in b&w than in color …
I think this is perceptual more than technical. For many years I did most of my personal work in b&w (though my commercial illustration was nearly all color on transparency film). When I began doing digital capture/digital printing around 4 years ago, it was the quality of color results that drew me in (I'd never been fond of darkroom color prints). In b&w, I had to learn to make pictures that didn't rely on subject colors to "work." In color I had to make sure subject color worked for and not against the point of the picture. When I've experimented converting my captures to b&w, I always miss the color component. When shooting film, I never carried b&w and color to choose between them subject by subject, so perhaps this is a knack I simply haven't learned.
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