Can't see in color

[MelanieC]

Way back when, I had point and shoot film cameras and only used them to document events. You know, birthdays, holidays, trips -- snapshots. I was a terrible photographer and never saw a composition I couldn't mangle. I'd cut off people's heads, catch them mid-laugh looking as awful as possible, you name it.

Then I got my first digital camera (a Coolpix 950), mostly for research, but began taking "fun" photos with it. I got a little better, or perhaps I just seemed to simply because I took more photos and could delete the really terrible ones. The Coolpix is actually a pretty spiffy camera and makes nice pictures, albeit digital and at only 2.1 mp.

Finally, I started using my father's old Leica M3 that had sat in a drawer waiting for 20 years. Since it was an old camera, I thought it'd be fitting to load it with black and white film for a lark. Since then I've been hooked. I'm still nothing to write home about as a photographer, but I'm way better than I was with my previous cameras -- maybe because I want to live up to the camera, maybe because of its sentimental value, I don't know. I do know that now I walk around and "see" pictures that I would never have seen before, and I take them, and sometimes they turn out to be something I don't mind showing to other people.

But I still can't see in color.

Now I have three rangefinders. Part of the reason I bought a second one to begin with (Canonet GIII QL17) is that I wanted to be able to keep one camera loaded with color film. So, I'm taking color photos again, and they stink. They are just as bad, if not worse, than my old snapshots. Not only this, I don't see pictures when I walk around if I have color film in my camera and I hardly take any.

I'm sure there is a logical explanation for this. But what is it?

 

[pesphoto]

Im the same way, but I don't fight it. Maybe that will change at some point, but shooting in color just holds no interest for me.

 

[PeterL]

Colour is great fun, though. When I came back from a 3 week trip to Schotland, it turned out all my best pictures had a small red detail in them. Rolling fields, barn, sky and clouds and where did that red tractor come from ? A good colour picture is like salt on the potatoes (as we say in Belgium). But it's much easier to take a bad one.


Peter.

 

[Kim Coxon]

I can see in colour, the blossom in spring, the autumn leves, the wild flower growing out of a lock gate. The only problem is that I can't always get it on film 🙁

Peter hit on it in his post. Colour is about contrast. I think that monochrome is perhaps more about texture.

Kim

 

[ch1]

Except for my all to brief visits to the house in Tucson, over the Winter all I wanted to shoot was B&W. It made a lot of sense.

Most times I live in the northeast US (NYC and upstate NYS) and winter is drab. So B&W "suits" the mood.

But come Springtime - I break out the color. I love shooting the new flowers and blossoms upstate and the various "shades" of greens that you get as life comes back to the "picture".

Color changes your "eye". Sometimes too much and you wind up just shooting crappy compositions because you are distracted by the color of the scene. But other times it all gels together.

Try shooting some available light color at a night time "street fair" scene. You get "street" and "color" and it all seems just right. A car rally or rodeo will do the same thing. People doing outside things that just beg for color.

Right now I am looking forward to doing some color street shooting in NYC - the angled yet still high sun of spring and summer mornings and evenings can create some great opportunities as well as those available light night shots.

Of course, as I write this we are under a nasty spell of crummy gray "spring showers" type skies but that's life! 😉

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

You could excercise your color "vision" by just looking for colors in every day stuff... signs against the sky, trucks, dogs - anything. Start by trying no to capture the object. Instead capture just the color and shapes. Crop in on the subject in camera.

Or look at an artist's work (in color). Maybe someone like Stuart Davis or Cassandre. Then emulate forms from their work by capturing color objects in life. The results can be very "graphic."

Don't worry about color harmony. You can pick up on that later when you feel more comfortable with what you are beginning to see.

 

[wtl]

I'm sure there is a logical explanation for this. But what is it?

I used to say I am color blind but later i realized that i just wanted to say that to be cool.

you will grow up. don't worry.

 

[PeterL]

Narcistically referring to myself, the "little red detail" I mentioned is also an aspect of Spielberg's "Schindler's List". I wasn't thinking of that movie, though, it just happened that most of the better images from that holiday also had a red detail, like roof tops glistening during a rain storm when the sun breaks through the clouds. Spielberg is one of the few, though, who's able to make good use of selective colouring of an essentially B/W image. It's a technique that's overused and that looks very artificial in most cases. I classify it under digital technology fetishism. In that movie, though, Spielberg uses it in a way that is very moving. As for us lesser geniusses (I'm mainly speaking for myself), it's easier to stick to full colour and pay attention to composition, including colour.


Good thread, Melanie.

Peter.

 

[photodog]

I used to say the same thing about my own photography. I would suggest taking a color photography class at City College of San Francisco taught by Jeff Weston. If you can't take the class in the fall, get one of the following books: Exploring Color Photography by Robert Hirsch, or Color Photography: A Working Manual by Henry Horenstein. Have fun, it's a learning experience!

 

[planetjoe]

But I still can't see in color.

Melanie, I think the answer is clear; not only that, you might be pleasantly satisified by my opinion in this case, as yours may be an affliction actually desired by certain shooters of the RF persuasion:

Apparently, you can see in black & white.

I've been trying to achieve this for a while now, but progress is slow. Although I'm getting better, I'm sometimes still a little surprised when I get my b&w negs back...thinking that something is missing from my images, I sometimes realize that I had visualized the original composition in color. Whoops. It's almost enough to make me walk around with red filters taped across my eyes.

Hey, that's not a bad idea.

But seriously. Your issue might be related to some kind of "visual confusion" of the color scene, at least as related to one in monochrome. (Not that mono scenes are simple; I can surely attest to the contrary). Perhaps it manifests itself as an anxiety response, and therefore affects your shooting. Something about what PeterL wrote really struck me - the singularity of a spot of color in an otherwise "background" field. Perhaps a self-imposed assignment is in order. A roll of Velvia/e100VS transparency film and a "single-color" palette might be a neat idea.

Whatever you do, don't hesitate; keep shooting. Thanks for your story.


Cheers,
--joe.

 

[ywenz]

I've seen great color shots done with the Leica. Keep on practicin and you'll get tthere

 

[remrf]

I remember reading a statement in a photo magazine about color photography that I thought (and think) has a lot of merit. It went somthing like, "Color in a photograph can as easily hide the subject as highlight it. It depends upon the skill of the photographer."

To me the line and form, the flow of a photograph is more easily depicted in B&W where without color to distract one can more easily see the lyricism of the forms shaped by light and shadow (or the lack thereof). Color imposes a stricter discipline upon the photographer. Not only must the forms be pleasantly placed in the composition but the colors of those forms must not fight each other for the attention of the viewer. It is difficult to capture in nature but examples do exist of wonderful natural color displays that caress the eye without obvious effort. As I sit here however I would have to say that the color shots that I think are most potent are studio shots where the photographer has narrowed the range of colors to be viewed and has absolute control of light and shadow.

YMMV

 

[wyk_penguin]

Colour is sometimes distracting. To get a good colour photo, one not only needs to pay attention to the content but also the colour balance (you not only compose the lines and textures but also the colours). Bad colour balance can hide the subject and destroy good composition.

 

[Rich Silfver]

Someone once said that one can never be an excellent b&w photographer AND an excellent colour photographer - good, but not excellent.

The reason, supposedly, that b&w is about light, shadows, pattern and contrast - and colour is about contrasting or complimentary colours and colour-based patterns and compositions.

Regardless if that is true enough I do believe that there is something to it.
I 'think' differently when I look at a scene and am shooting b&w than I do if I have colour film in the camera. I look for different things and sometimes discard any photo oportunities due to the type of film my camera is sporting.

Due to the above I make the assumption that the compositional skills one is exercising IS different if one is shooting b&w vs colour and tp practice them it may make sense to focus on one of them at the time.

Personally I 'see' a lot easier in b&w and even when I shoot colour I tend to desaturate them.

 

[sf]

I can see in colour, the blossom in spring, the autumn leves, the wild flower growing out of a lock gate. The only problem is that I can't always get it on film 🙁

Peter hit on it in his post. Colour is about contrast. I think that monochrome is perhaps more about texture.

Kim

I never really had the trouble with color. I do, on the other hand, not see quite the geometry that some of you do. I see alot of black and white work that reflects a stronger sense of shape, texture, and tone than I have ever really had myself.

TO me, shooting in color us just about seeing strong colors and colors that define the message in the image.

I think this image is defined by the range of pastels, and would be much less appealing without the added color value : http://www.shutterflower.com/portrait gallery/pages/sierra-2RFF.htm

I think this image too is defined by its colors as much as by its other attributes : http://www.shutterflower.com/street scene gallery/pages/street-market-at-nightRFF.htm

that this image is much better in black and white than it would have been in color : http://www.shutterflower.com/landscape gallery/pages/quiet-ocean-sceneRFF.htm

and finally, that this image is defined by its subtle colors and tones, and that in either high saturation color or B&W, it would not be as appealing : http://www.shutterflower.com/landscape gallery/pages/dusky-ocean-scene-wide-open.htm

there are benefits to both media. Of course, I no longer shoot color but for the very rare roll of Velvia, since I can no longer afford to spend the cash for the film and development ($15 between the two).

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

SNIP:

But I still can't see in color.

I'm sure there is a logical explanation for this. But what is it?

I can't either Melanie and I don't think I ever will - why fix what's not broken? 🙂

 

[Buze]

I like both the black & white and color; but it's true I have to almost willingly "switch" my brain between the two modes. I have never transformed a color photograph to a black & white one, if it was taken as color, it was meant to be as color, even if it doesn't work and "could" in B&W.

When doing color, I really go for punchy saturated views, mostly of landscapes. Black & white is more for "street" stuff and (as quoted earlier) for winter light & rainy days. There can be overlaps of course...

So yes maybe you need to find something else to shoot in color, to train your eye to a different "mode" of seeing the photographs.

 

[Stu W]

This would be a good project. A trip to the Botanical Gardens in Spring armed with only black and white film. If I could do that and come home with a few good shots I'd be satisfied. Using the fudamentals without punching it up with color.

 

[JOE1951]

I tend to agree with alot of whats been said so far. I can't take photos in colour either. I've tried, and used to shoot nothing but colour on my last job, but I can't get into it. I've tried processing my own colour neg, with hopes of altering the process and changing the look, but no luck for me.

I shoot only colour now when shooting with my little Canon A80 digital camera, but it's just a "note-taker" the colour doesn't do much for me.

I'm going to be shooting B&W as long as I can get the film.

The only time I've enjoyed colour was drawing and painting courses at the local art college.

 

[wtl]

Someone once said that one can never be an excellent b&w photographer AND an excellent colour photographer - good, but not excellent.

unless you cosider bruce davidson not excellent enough...