Color or BW for street....?

J

jky

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Not from a "viewer" point of view, but rather as the taker...

There have been posts on "seeing in BW" and such, but I personally find it difficult to shoot color street photographs. Not that I don't appreciate them - in fact I really enjoy them equally to BW prints/images. But as the person behind the camera, I'm sometimes distracted by the bright, bold ____ *add your color here* within the frame.

...just wondering...
 
I like both - I like shooting black and white in low-light situations, in Metro cars or outdoors at night. I like the stark noir-ish feel it sometimes provides, and if I'm not mistaken B&W also has a wider latitude, which could come in handy when light is precious (though I could be wrong about that). I like color for daytime, outdoors, events, and general shooting. Often times the color of something will be part of what draws me in the first place. What I need are two film bodies, one for color and one for b & w.
 
I used to shoot black and white all the time but have recently been shooting color with good effect (At least I like them.) . I have no problem with the shooting and as to the viewing I usually adjust saturation - I happen to like reasonably high contrast but low saturation images which give a nice effect for street shooting.

My Flickr page here (one with a few street shots in it) http://www.flickr.com/photos/life_in_shadows/page6/

And a couple of examples of what I mean.

3754746386_5d9f9bacc6_b.jpg


3576679405_5a430315ac_o.jpg
 
I used to shoot color like this one for street:
4547163915_2735ebb396.jpg


But now that lately I have been bulk loading & processing my own film, its mainly black & white photography. I just love the convenience I receive from pushing/pulling B&W film.

4543366159_dd0267f020.jpg


Being able to push Tri-X 400 to 1600 like this is just fantastic:
4720933486_fa35d325f8.jpg
 
Nice pics!

Do you guys find it a fairly simple process in your minds to take a color photo as opposed to BW & vice versa. Not talking about the post process part where everything now can be rendered as mono in photoshop/lightroom/etc...
...I was never one to have two cameras one loaded w/ color and the other w/ hp5 because it always confused me.... life of a simple mind I guess 🙂
 
I shoot a lot of film. I love color, but B&W allows me to capture more images and allows me the control of developement. Shooting a lot of B&W film (more frames than color) has made me a better/more consistent shooter.

If money was not an issue, I'd probably shoot more/some color, but the level of control B&W offers would be hard to leave behind.

I just recently (today) added a real long obnoxious signiture. I'd likely own less gear if I shot color.

Cal
 
jky said:
Nice pics!

Do you guys find it a fairly simple process in your minds to take a color photo as opposed to BW & vice versa. Not talking about the post process part where everything now can be rendered as mono in photoshop/lightroom/etc...
...I was never one to have two cameras one loaded w/ color and the other w/ hp5 because it always confused me.... life of a simple mind I guess 🙂
Click to expand...

I get confused easily; and, many times I tend to carry two cameras (either MF, 35mm Rangefinder or 35mmSLR); but I don't even like mixing film speeds in different cameras because it often leads to mistakes like shooting at the wrong speed or forgetting to change the ASA.

Recently I have been shooting TXP 320 in 220 and HP5 in 120. I discovered I like HP5 shot at 320 and the bonus is I can develope both the TXP and HP5 in the same tank at the same time.

For visualizing B&W try squinting. Like DOF preview it dampens the saturation of color and makes colors grey, especially under dim lighting. This is pretty easy to do. In art school my professor taught us that photograpy was just painting with light. I was primarily a painter BTW.

Recently I shot the colorful Mermaid Parade in B&W. Check out the pics that Barrett scanned and posted for me in the thread tiitled "Mermaid Parade Yesterday." I don't think color film would of added to the images.

Cal
 
wblanchard said:
This image just blows me away!
Click to expand...

Thanks!

I shoot mostly in B&W because it saves me the hassel of going down to the lab to get it processed. Lazy syndrome....... 🙂

B&W on the other hand, I can process as many rolls as I want right at home!

I shoot a lot of street as well, just feel that B&W for street looks better
 
I have a lot of b/w film in storage and when they are done I will switch to color slide film. This is because I only do digital output now and I have more post processing options with color and also sometimes I actually want a color image. I don't see why I should unnecessarily limit myself. If I need to shoot at iso1600 or higher I will shoot digital. The best tool for the job!
 
I generally shoot colour, but for street, B&W I think looks better, adds a "grittiness" and also during the day, in most cities, the colour is uninteresting. At night I think colour can look great as you get the neon lights etc. of a city which look superb in colour, but totally lost in B&W.
 
As I have been recently educated, there are hard and fast rules if one wants to call one's work "street photography". They are, of course, un-numerated, but must be followed to the t if one wants to claim "street" as one's genre.

I'm sure that it be in B&W is one of those immutable rules.
 
Some scenes just working in color and some only in B&W. But both are working great for Streetphotographie. The Photographer who's working with color is looking for some contrasty colors in his pic and B&W Shooter is searching for light and shadows. I like both if it's 'correctly' used.
 
I like black and white over color. The lack of color removes a lot of distraction, exposing the emotion of the image. I also like black and white because I can buy it and develop it myself quite cheaply. My local labs are hit and miss when it comes to color, and I'd rather not take the risk of having them damage my film.

I have digital cameras, but I dislike using them. The simplicity of a film camera, with it's mechanical operation, is appealing to me. I spent today wandering around with an old Yashica CCN which has seen at least 1000 rolls of film go through it, it operates as smoothly as a Swiss watch. I left my Leicas at home for a change so I could give the old Yashica some exercise.

I'll get some color film for the cherry blossom season next year, but I'll keep using black and white until then.
 
I like them both equally and use them interchagably. One does not give any more emotion than the other in my opinion. One simply works better over the other depending on the photo and situation... and how much description you want in your photo. I think many people don't know how to use color.
 
jsrockit said:
I like them both equally and use them interchagably. One does not give any more emotion than the other in my opinion. One simply works better over the other depending on the photo and situation... and how much description you want in your photo. I think many people don't know how to use color.
Click to expand...

I think I'm just one of those people that "don't know".... (caveat: not that my BW images will be forever etched in society's mind).
I'm trying to learn color though.

I admire those who can use it to effectively...
 
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