B&W intellectual, color emotional?

[Daneinbalto]

In Bill Smith's excellent "Designing a Photograph" (Amphoto, New York 1985), he writes about the differences between B&W and color (p. 96):

"While black-and-white most strongly represents the craft and generates an intellectual response, color creates a feeling that elicits a more emotional chord in the viewer".

He continues:

"An initial advantage to a print in shades of gray is that it is different from reality so a curiosity factor is already built-in. The same curiosity exists for a color photograph, but it is based on familiarity"

Implicit in the second statement is the notion that B&W is more abstract. This I can understand. But I just can't wrap my head around the first statement. Why would B&W photography, being a further abstraction from the real world than color photography, evoke a more intellectual response compared to color? I would think it was the other way around.

Please can someone explain the B&W=intellectual, color=emotional paradigm to me? I'm lost.

 

[batterytypehah!]

I think what he means is that with b&w, the viewer is by definition aware that they are looking at an image. A representation of the real world through a technical process. With color, it's much easier to forget that.

Also, today, and certainly at the time of writing as well, you are aware that taking/reproducing pictures in b&w is a deliberate choice. I mean, newspapers were still all b&w in 1985 but other than that, you'd pick b&w largely because you wanted to.

So, awareness of the technical nature equals a more intellectual response? Makes sense to me.

(As an aside, I have always wondered what people thought of b&w images when photography was first invented. It must have seemed so alien at first.)

 

[batterytypehah!]

Well, in fact the entire world was of course black and white until the early 20th century, according to the classic Calvin & Hobbes cartoon 🙂

 

[BillP]

Y'know, my heart sinks when I see the word "intellectual" in a thread title. Sometimes a photo is just a photo. Sontag, Barthes and their ilk have a lot to answer for. The "four legs good/two legs bad" approach simply does not work, whether it is applied to colour vs black and white, film vs digital or alien vs predator.

Frankly, if colour = emotional, then an HDR image = nervous breakdown.

Further thoughts here: Calm down Dear, it's only a photo

Regards,

Bill

 

[rgpadron]

The human brain was "designed" to perceive the world in color. So there is a mystic quality to b/w photography. It has to draw and catch our attention, it has to be outstanding, intellectual.

 

[arthur sadowsky]

We maid to see things in color...

We maid to see things in color...

The human brain was "designed" to perceive the world in color. So there is a mystic quality to b/w photography. It has to draw and catch our attention, it has to be outstanding, intellectual.

Whether you guys believe in Evolution or not, but we were maid to see things around us in color. Ability to see things in color was in fact HUGE!! Evolution improvement and gave us a big advancement over others species (including intellectual advancement).

Why limit ourselves to b&w only? I'm not colorblind and I can't see how I can limit myself and ignore infinite beauty of all kind of colorful life around me.

I do understand that back in the 19th and first half of the 20th century photographers were limited to use of b&w films only, but those days are all over and we don't have to compromise anymore.

Emotional verses Intellectual? Why do we still talk about it in 2009?? Do I make any sense to anyone???

p.s.: I do respect photographers using b&w films, but it's just like drinking water and water only, ignoring all kind of endless variety of wonderful drinks on the planet...

 

[Chris101]

In Bill Smith's excellent "Designing a Photograph" (Amphoto, New York 1985), he writes about the differences between B&W and color (p. 96):

"While black-and-white most strongly represents the craft and generates an intellectual response, color creates a feeling that elicits a more emotional chord in the viewer".
...

Please can someone explain the B&W=intellectual, color=emotional paradigm to me? I'm lost.

Yes. Bill Smith is wrong.

 

[Chris101]

Whether you guys believe in Evolution or not, but we were maid to see things around us in color. Ability to see things in color was in fact HUGE!! Evolution improvement and gave us a big advancement over others species (including intellectual advancement).

Why limit ourselves to b&w only? I'm not colorblind and I can't see how I can limit myself and ignore infinite beauty of all kind of colorful life around me.

I do understand that back in the 19th and first half of the 20th century photographers were limited to use of b&w films only, but those days are all over and we don't have to compromise anymore.

Emotional verses Intellectual? Why do we still talk about it in 2009?? Do I make any sense to anyone???

p.s.: I do respect photographers using b&w films, but it's just like drinking water and water only, ignoring all kind of endless variety of wonderful drinks on the planet...

So this applys to both Creationists and to thinking people? Excellent. However, I cannot disagree with your theme more! Since we see in color (I am colorblind, and even I see in color, just differently than you do - true monochromatic vision is extremely rare in humans) color photographs look like reality. Only small, flat, slightly off-color versions of reality that is. When I look at a sunset, it can take my breath away. When I look at the very best color photographs of a sunset (say, from the magazine Arizona Highways) I will think "that's a nice picture of a sunset", but the emotional impact is completely missing.

Now if I were to see a well made black and white photograph of a sunset, my curiosity would be sparked. I would imagine a sunset - in full color and it would be large and give me an emotional thrill. Black and white photography, for the most part, involves using one's imagination more so than does color. For me, color photographs are often the best way to illustrate something that relies on color as a cue to meaning. Black and white photographs open the minds eye and can lead to a whole experience - intellect, emotion, even visceral if the subject is intense enough. Come to think of it, even color photos can achieve that. It just seems to happen more often with B&W. Perhaps as it is more difficult to master color.

 

[thomasw_]

Yes. Bill Smith is wrong.

Hahahhehe, I love the terse, exacting answer, Chris. That made my day...thanks heaps man 😉

In one sense though I can "sort of" understand some of the sense behind this notion. The problem being that my explanation has some fuzzy points and I admit that fact readily. My thought is along the line of Andrei Tarkovsky's who claimed that "...colour film is a "commercial gimmick" and cast doubt on the idea that contemporary films meaningfully use colour." Further Tarkovsky claimed that "...in everyday life one does not consciously notice colors most of the time. Hence in film color should be used mainly to emphasize certain moments, but not all the time as this distracts the viewer." Thus for Tarkovsky, "...colour in film is like a series of paintings...which are too beautiful to be a realistic depiction of life." I can grasp how photographs in BW tend to be processed with respect to the tonality, the geometry and composition. But does this lead us to the idea that the thematic content of BW imagery is more ready to be grasped intellectually in part because of its monochrome look? I mean that colours do add an emotional charge at times, but do not the varied tones in a monochrome print give some sort of emotional charge? In what way is it different if at all?

 

[Spider67]

.....I noticed that B&W activates some kind of switch in many people, as soon as a photograph is B&W:
- it's better
-true art
-something spiritual
When those people talk about it they sound as if they repeat somebody elses wisdom or that they've been taught tha they can#T fail The wird thing is that they are not that into photography and I am the Photog taking 80% in B&W.
So I am puzzled when thy lecture me sternly about the high value (that they rarely produce themselves) of B&W.

 

[Leighgion]

Bill Smith is selling a false dichotomy.

A B&W photograph is generally more abstract than color, but just because this can evoke an intellectual response in the viewer, it does not then logically follow that color therefore evokes a more emotional response. When you pause and spend just a moment to consider it, emotion is up there with the most abstract things around. A B&W photo's abstractness could help elicit either a strong intellectual or emotional response depending on the individual work and viewer.

 

[arthur sadowsky]

So this applys to both Creationists and to thinking people? Excellent. However, I cannot disagree with your theme more!

...Perhaps as it is more difficult to master color.

Hey Chris101,

Thank you for your respond and you certainly maid me thinking and in particular about generation-technological-cultural differences among us.

What am I trying to say? I'm 41 and to me color film (or any color media, digital or film) is kind of natural for me. Or in the other words I have had access to color film photography from the day one of my life (whatever I was a subject or was taking pictures of my own later on in my life).

Do you think that not being able to use color photography (or using b&w only as the only source widely and mostly available in the old days) helped to form/create stereotype of b&w being only the true artistic way of expression?

Could it be just a generation misunderstanding thing?

 

[amateriat]

Frankly, if colour = emotional, then an HDR image = nervous breakdown.

I rather like that one, Bill. 😀


- Barrett

 

[MartinL]

I'm sure that lots (most, all?) the people here have had the experience of toggling between a color and desaturated BW image. How does that affect you? Any pattern?

I tend to prefer the one I'm looking at at the moment. If I switch to color from a BW image, the color looks cheesy-- color on paper can be stunning and evoke all sorts of realities, but it does not look like the color I see in "real" life. Switch from color to BW and the image strikes me as being unnecessarily pretentious and speaks of PS manipulation not much different from IR or heavy handed HDR.

But then, the eyes and mind adjust and the image normalizes. Is one more intellectual? I suppose that depends on the usual stuff like experience and culture. We humans tend to differ in those regards.

 

[Chris101]

Hey Chris101,

Thank you for your respond and you certainly maid me thinking and in particular about generation-technological-cultural differences among us.

What am I trying to say? I'm 41 and to me color film (or any color media, digital or film) is kind of natural. Or in other words I have had access to color film photography from the day one of my life (whatever I was a subject or was taking pictures of my own later on in my life).

Do you think that not being able to use color photography (or using b&w only as the only source widely and mostly available in the old days) helped to form/create stereotype of b&w being only the true artistic way of expression?

Could it be just a generation misunderstanding thing?

Perhaps, but I don't think so. My first roll of film was Kodachrome, and I became somewhat proficient at printing on Cibachrome. Strongly saturated abstract stuff. Really was about the color. I dabbled in b&w but mostly used it for color separation work, using #29, 61 and 47 filters to get a mix of red, green and blue, then combining them with a registration 'super-slide' camera. It wasn't until 2004 that I really got into shooting b&w expressively.

My friend who is the head of the college's photo department is also 41, yet heavily promotes b&w work. I think it's a personal preference - color or b&w. And a lot of it depends on the image. If you get a chance to see an exhibit of really well made black and white prints, take it! Avedon, for example. He just makes you fall in love with the medium.

 

[crawdiddy]

So this applys to both Creationists and to thinking people? Excellent. However, I cannot disagree with your theme more! Since we see in color (I am colorblind, and even I see in color, just differently than you do - true monochromatic vision is extremely rare in humans) color photographs look like reality. Only small, flat, slightly off-color versions of reality that is. When I look at a sunset, it can take my breath away. When I look at the very best color photographs of a sunset (say, from the magazine Arizona Highways) I will think "that's a nice picture of a sunset", but the emotional impact is completely missing.

Now if I were to see a well made black and white photograph of a sunset, my curiosity would be sparked. I would imagine a sunset - in full color and it would be large and give me an emotional thrill. Black and white photography, for the most part, involves using one's imagination more so than does color. For me, color photographs are often the best way to illustrate something that relies on color as a cue to meaning. Black and white photographs open the minds eye and can lead to a whole experience - intellect, emotion, even visceral if the subject is intense enough. Come to think of it, even color photos can achieve that. It just seems to happen more often with B&W. Perhaps as it is more difficult to master color.

Good points, Chris (the L.V.) I also am colorblind. Btw, those of us with traditional sex-linked (so called red-green) color blindness, become weary of explaining the condition to our normal-color-vision buddies. No, we do see color, just not the same way everyone else does. And for that matter, we're skeptical that all the normal folks see color the same way either. Just ask a buch of them whether a tennis ball is yellow or green.

I shot a lot of color slides earlier in my life. Kodachorome, and then Velvia. I don't think my color perception was a hindrance most of the time, but it clearly was some of the time. I mostly shoot B&W now. But the personal satisfaction of developing and printing it is the primary reason.

Btw, the OP seems to suggest evidence of human superiority based on color vision. I'm not sure this has been empirically determined.

 

[bob338]

i'm in the middle of a couple of books so i can't remember which one this came from, maybe stephen shore...

the difference between them is b/w stops the scene and freezes it in time and gives the mind a feeling of it being part of the past. color evokes motion and seems more like current reality and even part of the future.

makes sense to me.

bob

 

[Chris101]

Good points, Chris (the L.V.) I also am colorblind. Btw, those of us with traditional sex-linked (so called red-green) color blindness, become weary of explaining the condition to our normal-color-vision buddies. No, we do see color, just not the same way everyone else does. And for that matter, we're skeptical that all the normal folks see color the same way either. Just ask a buch of them whether a tennis ball is yellow or green.

I shot a lot of color slides earlier in my life. Kodachorome, and then Velvia. I don't think my color perception was a hindrance most of the time, but it clearly was some of the time. I mostly shoot B&W now. But the personal satisfaction of developing and printing it is the primary reason.

Btw, the OP seems to suggest evidence of human superiority based on color vision. I'm not sure this has been empirically determined.

As an evolutionary advantage, the ability to distinguish one's prey - and preditors! - from the background based on color, is certainly an advantage. That is precisely why deuteranopic vision, such as ours, has thrived. A significantly large portion of human males have 'green diminished color blindness' - something like 4 to 5 percent. This makes it so that camouflage stands out against foliage like black on white. And back when humans were subject to the forces of evolution*, it was the males who did the hunting. The ability to spot prey at a greater distance was an advantage and colorblind men were important to the hunt. Thus we have survived with this superpower intact!

* by that I mean pre-medicine, not pre-religious right.

 

[estudleon]

I understand all said here.

Prefer the B&W images, but I don't know why. The reason of that? The B&W is inside me, is in my head, in my hart, is this emotional or intellectual, or nothing? Repeat I don't know. Only ocurr to me.

 

[AgentX]

Such a silly idea. So many people would say the opposite, when frankly, neither color nor b/w has any intrinsic nature.

Look at Sebastio Selgado and tell me b/w isn't emotional...