Changing it up: Color vs B&W for Street Photography

[Disaster_Area]

One thing that strikes me about all of these which contributes I think to the surreal look is that they feel very frozen. Not sure if due to a high shutter speed or what but I think a little motion blur would free them up a little and breathe a little more life into them. Again this is more a matter of personal taste and you might want this sort of look.

You're definitely correct... I tend not to go below 1/500th if I can help it... usually up near 1/1000th. I like motion blur, but I like it to be intentional. There's too much randomness to street photography to hope that the motion blur you capture will help the image rather than hurt it, at least for me. Yes, I'm definitely going for a frozen look that's very much at odds with classic street photography. I wonder if this was a choice by some of the previous street photography greats or a restriction imposed by having to deal with relatively slow films as apposed to being able to shoot at 1600 or 3200 without worrying so much about loss of detail?

I know when I work with film I tend to include a lot more motion blur in my shots.

 

[cz23]

To me the "color" in the photos above does not look natural, and it's too obvious a part of the presentation. That's what I like about b&w. It puts the attention on the content -- subjects, forms, and their arrangement -- rather than treatment.

In a way, conversion to b&w is a bigger departure from reality that toning, but we're so used to seeing street work done that way that it feels natural.

I disagree with the premise in the blog post that removing color creates one less variable. True, it removes color, but it also adds b&w, with it's own infinite processing possibilities.

John

 

[Araakii]

I love color if they are "accurately presented" in the photos. If there's an artificial tone, then it's really a distraction to me and I would rather see the photo in B&W.

 

[Araakii]

To me the "color" in the photos above does not look natural, and it's too obvious a part of the presentation. That's what I like about b&w. It puts the attention on the content -- subjects, forms, and their arrangement -- rather than treatment.

In a way, conversion to b&w is a bigger departure from reality that toning, but we're so used to seeing street work done that way that it feels natural.

I disagree with the premise in the blog post that removing color creates one less variable. True, it removes color, but it also adds b&w, with it's own infinite processing possibilities.

John

I think a lot of people tone their photos because the photos themselves are boring to begin with. So they need to come up with some "interesting" tone to grab the eyeballs.

 

[Stelios]

Sorry to hijack the thread but... what do you mean "toning"? Meaning, what do you do to the image? Is it colour balance, hue, white balance? I'm rubbish shooting digital colour...

 

[Stelios]

Some of them have a wonderful feeling/atmosphere.

 

[Stelios]

Btw, if you manage to solve the colour clashes in a colour street photo, then I think it can be equally beautiful as a black and white one.

 

[Disaster_Area]

Sorry to hijack the thread but... what do you mean "toning"? Meaning, what do you do to the image? Is it colour balance, hue, white balance? I'm rubbish shooting digital colour...

Toning just refers to any global change in the hues of an image... you can do this by changing the white balance, toning controls in the raw converter or by applying digital photo filters that mimic warming or cooling filters.

 

[Stelios]

Cheers. Good to know the process, although I've never managed to do it myself successfully. I rely on film to do it for me. Can't do digital colour managing.

 

[ebolton]

I prefer the color shots. And I like the 'toning' you have selected.

Color for me is an important dimension of any scene. I like and appreciate B+W work too, but most of the time color makes the scene complete. That teal T-shirt on the blonde in the very first picture would have been pretty bland in B+W and the whole scene would have been dull and boring. The color of that T-shirt sort of sets the whole attitude of the picture for me. I'm probably not explaining myself well, because it's so basic with me I'm not sure how to explain it.
-Ed

 

[Disaster_Area]

I'm really encouraged by what I'm hearing so far. The majority seem to like the color edits... which is cool. And I'm even happy to hear that there are those that don't like them, finding the colors to "unnatural" or the color itself or sharpness breaking from some of the traditions of black and white street photography. I hope that means I'm starting to achieve what I'm going for.

As much as I love the street photography of the past, I'm trying to find a style of my own, learning from, instead of just aping what's been done before. Thanks for all the input.

 

[Stelios]

There's been plenty of colour street photography coming from the 70s onwards.

I find the pictures I liked the most, had a warm hue to them, probably reminding me cinematic frames (which is natural considering your background), that I really liked and wish I could achieve myself.

 

[mdarnton]

I've got real mixed feelings about them. On a gut level, I liked them, but then when I thought more about them and how much the artificial coloration shapes my reaction, I start to feel like I'm being manipulated in a way that's too similar to what advertising illustrations do.

Then my opinion dropped several levels as I started thinking they look too much like slick advertising illustrations, not enough like "real" photography. Additionally, it all seems like an evasion of dealing with the real colors in the subject material head-on, and becomes even more artificial, more distanced from what was really happening in front of the camera.

In the end, I guess I don't like them at all--they look too much like the kind of insubstantial fluffy stuff that ends up on Flicker's "explore" pages, or a "Travel Canada" brochure. You've found your own personal version of HDR: gold toning as a chintzy gimmick.

And it's not the pictures' fault--in black and white I'd like them all a lot better; there's nothing wrong at all with the photos, fundamentally, but the presentation ruins them.

How do they play out in straight color?

 

[Stelios]

I thought the colour vs b+w matter was solved years ago. What is "straight colour"? Is b+w more "truthfull"? Is it real? Straight even? I don't find colour wrong in any way. There is good use and bad use. That's all I can tell. And these ones (apart from the first one) appeal to me. May not appealing to everyone understandably, just don't let perceptions take away the enjoyment. Your gut liked them!

 

[BobYIL]

I know from the early stages of Magnum photo, Life magazine, etc., that street does not "go" well with color as it does with B&W. Color dictates its own rules to the photographer the way the chemical enginer behind had “determined” the colors; you are obliged to “see” the world in conformity with the spectrum the color film in your camera was pre-defined to express, not the way nature is seen in your eyes. Color, once out of control, can create way off psychology the end result was intended to accomplish whereas B&W by eliminating such adverse probability reduces everything into tones of gray, enabling to express the same however as an abstract essence, leaving the rest to the onlooker. It’s for this reason that one can rarely find color pictures from HCB, Salgado, Koudelka, Eisenstaedt and the likes while one of their contemporaries, Ernst Haas, had mastered color however by staying away from street.

The greatest contribution to the “street in color” came from the National Geographic first before the other magazines like Geo, Paris Match, Stern, etc. If we admire the works of Alex Webb, Raghubir Singh, David Alan Harvey, William Albert Allard or Steve McCurry then we partially owe them to such magazines for their standard based on color photography, not B&W.

For most photographers, even in the Vietnam war days or in today's photojournalism, color has more meaning on the street for "documentary" whereas B&W has always something to do with artistry and aesthetics... But again, it’s up to each one of us to inquire how many great street photographs we remember in color and how many in B&W.

 

[Araakii]

I've got real mixed feelings about them. On a gut level, I liked them, but then when I thought more about them and how much the artificial coloration shapes my reaction, I start to feel like I'm being manipulated in a way that's too similar to what advertising illustrations do.

Then my opinion dropped several levels as I started thinking they look too much like slick advertising illustrations, not enough like "real" photography. Additionally, it all seems like an evasion of dealing with the real colors in the subject material head-on, and becomes even more artificial, more distanced from what was really happening in front of the camera.

In the end, I guess I don't like them at all--they look too much like the kind of insubstantial fluffy stuff that ends up on Flicker's "explore" pages, or a "Travel Canada" brochure. You've found your own personal version of HDR: gold toning as a chintzy gimmick.

And it's not the pictures' fault--in black and white I'd like them all a lot better; there's nothing wrong at all with the photos, fundamentally, but the presentation ruins them.

How do they play out in straight color?

Cannot agree more.

Some people say that a certain tone brings out the mood. Well, obviously the color wasn't there in reality so there was no "mood" to begin with. So in that sense, the viewers' feeling is indeed being manipulated to feel something that wasn't there to begin with.

 

[back alley]

i didn't care for colour in the street until i started to shoot with the rd1...i love those colours!!

 

[Disaster_Area]

Some people say that a certain tone brings out the mood. Well, obviously the color wasn't there in reality so there was no "mood" to begin with. So in that sense, the viewers' feeling is indeed being manipulated to feel something that wasn't there to begin with.

That's only true if color were the only way to convey mood. Sounds can produce a mood, temperature, the season... the mood of the photographer who took the shot... the city itself has a mood that has nothing to do with color or shape, it comes from a million different things all unique to it's place and time and people. You can't capture everything in a photo, but you can use color to reflect the moods you can't photograph.

I'm not saying I've got it right yet, or that you have to like it, but I reject the statement that just because a color wasn't there originally it can't reflect a mood that was. I agree, the additions of colors manipulate the viewer, but all photos manipulate the viewer. We can't see what happened just before a photo, or just after it... out of context no single frame accurately portrays the reality that created it... doesn't matter if it's black and white or color. Stripping out the color manipulates things just as much, as others have said, black and white gives any photo a more raw, gritty and stark feel than the same shot in color. Take a portrait on a bright sunny day... in black and white you have no idea as the viewer if the photo was taken during a warm spring sunrise or a cold winter sunset. The loss of that information changes how we might view the picture. I'm not saying it's right or wrong... but the removal of color is just as much a manipulation as adding it.

You're definitely right, I am trying to manipulate the viewer, I'm trying to get them to feel how I felt at the time I took the shot.

 

[Disaster_Area]

@Araakii

Also, how is toning a digital image any different that using different types or brands of film... or even expired film. I've been looking through your Flickr (Which is really quite good btw, I'm really enjoying it) and you often use slide film and expired film which both portray colors different than they appeared in reality. Photographers have been choosing one film over another for a certain job because of how it renders certain colors to add mood or feel to a photo.

These three shots for instance:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34767179@N08/6913702052/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34767179@N08/6397144993/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34767179@N08/6330384860/in/photostream

And this photo, which I love in part due to the manipulation, uses black and white to make the view feel more like it's an old photo of old timey girls, instead of a modern photos of costumes:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/34767179@N08/6280079869/in/photostream

Everything we do as photographers is manipulation 🙂

 

[jsrockit]

Stripping out the color manipulates things just as much, as others have said, black and white gives any photo a more raw, gritty and stark feel than the same shot in color. Take a portrait on a bright sunny day... in black and white you have no idea as the viewer if the photo was taken during a warm spring sunrise or a cold winter sunset. The loss of that information changes how we might view the picture. I'm not saying it's right or wrong... but the removal of color is just as much a manipulation as adding it.

I agree completely... and have seen a few handfuls of people over the years that relied on B&W to mask mediocre images. Take any photograph and make one color and one B&W print. Now take those photos to the average person who's not into photograhy and they will pick the B&W image most times due to it being different than what they are used to.