Do most people "get" black and white?

[hepcat]

I 'get' Picasso, Matisse, Seurat, Dali, and Warhol. I don't 'get' Jackson Pollock.

Some folks never 'get' art. Some folks expect photography to record what they see, nothing more and nothing less; hence the "imagine what Ansel Adams could have done in color" comment.

 

[KenR]

Most people who see my stuff say that they "just love B &W". Others don't say anything. A few say "this would nice if it was in color". It used to bother me, now I just laugh.

 

[Chris101]

When I get the "why not color" question or comment, I tell them that I am colorblind, so naturally b&w comes naturally. They nod as if that made sense. It doesn't, but they stop asking, satisfied.

 

[aizan]

if some people don't get why your photos work better in b&w, just show them what they looked like in color!

 

[sebastel]

.., I tell them that I am colorblind, ...

good one.

this discussion reminds me of my colleage, who, when noticing that i use a non-digital camera loaded with B&W film, asked: "but you know that they make colour film, don't you?"
i felt that he actually wanted to ask whether i am sane.

 

[__jc]

What's wrong with honesty? Rather than trying not to sound pretentious, or pretending you are colourblind or whatever, why not just explain what your reasons honestly are?

I don't "get" why people just can't say what they think. If you can't articulate why you choose to do something a certain way, maybe you should question why you do it that way. But making up stories about why you do something, especially when someone seems interested enough to ask, is disingenuous.

 

[CliveC]

What's wrong with honesty? Rather than trying not to sound pretentious, or pretending you are colourblind or whatever, why not just explain what your reasons honestly are?

I don't "get" why people just can't say what they think. If you can't articulate why you choose to do something a certain way, maybe you should question why you do it that way. But making up stories about why you do something, especially when someone seems interested enough to ask, is disingenuous.

To distill it down "I like it that way" is also what I think.

I never make up stories, in fact, if they are really curious, I explain how removing colour (or shooting without it) removes a level of distraction and emphasizes the interplay of shadow and light.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Hey, Clive, I remember and have your portrait of me in b/w!
It would be disaster if me in color 🙂

My mother-in-law every time I show her wet prints tells me how she likes color photography.
My ward consul stopped asking me for local events pictures after first time I gave it to him in b/w.
But.
Here is one local 18YO fella with my Z-6 and I-50 on it, who is on his second roll of b/w film, he just likes his family b/w pictures and decided to give it a try by himself.
On this Family Day I discovered two more b/w pictures at friends house on Hamilton Beach, surprisingly, both were taken by me.
Our local friends don't mind to get one of my b/w at their dining area. I just have to print it large, very large, like 200 CAD large 🙂
My daughter (one from four) likes to take it b/w and likes to print with me on b/w photo paper in our dark(bath)room.
I have my blog (in Russian) with many b/w pictures and surprisingly some of the readers, viewers mentioned to me they like in film and b/w. Prior to this I was big time on digital FF and colors.
I was never noticed while in color on Flickr, but once I went film and b/w...

One note - to me it is only b/w on the FILM.
I still do a lot in color digitally, for family album and to sell things I don't use anymore.

 

[noisycheese]

I think a lot more people don't grasp black and white photographs than will admit to it.

When I was in junior high school and was just beginning photography, I shot in black and white. When I got away from photography for a while, I shot in color (C-41) as a hobbyist. When I got serious about photography
later in life, I shot Fuji RVP (E-6) and developed it myself. Then the digital revolution began; it didn't interest me and still doesn't, at least not enough to invest in a serious digital camera (or even a non-serious digital camera, as I am still 100% film based). Later on, I began to shoot & develop black and white again, which I am still doing. When I want to work in color nowadays, I shoot & develop my own Fuji Pro 400H rather than Fuji Velvia.

For me, black and white was an acquired taste. Now I actually prefer it to color imagery. B&W is a more reflective and insightful way of making and looking at (evaluating) images. It requires a different mindset, a different photographic worldview and aesthetic. It requires the viewer of the photograph(s) to "look deeper," for lack of a better term.

By comparison, color images seem to be more of a "what you see is what you get" presentation. The palette of color preoccupies the viewer, distracting them from the deeper implications and undercurrents present in the photograph. Color images are somehow less thought provoking and are easier to look at in a more superficial way; color can readily lend itself to looking but not seeing (though it doesn't have to). No doubt many here will disagree, but that has been my personal experience. As always, YMMV.

IMHO, advertising, movies and television has created a mass epidemic of visually ADHD people in our world. Everything has to be "exciting." Everything has to be attention grabbing. Still photographs are thought to be static, placid and "boring." Video is flashy, dramatic, astonishing, stimulating. When fed an incessant visual diet of frenzied activity, garish color and splashing, exploding visual effects, people become visually overstimulated which leads to desensitization. In order to trump the last commercial, TV program or movie (or Photoshopped print), viewers have to be infused with ever increasing doses of visual overstimulation.

This is the antithesis of black and white imagery, which is inherently more quieting, insightful and reflective in nature - to me, at least.

The above is my take on the question of "Do most people 'get' black and white photography?" This is just my experience - YMMV.

Regarding what to say to people who ask why you photograph in black and white instead of color, I think this quote from Ted Grant says it nicely:

“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls!”

This viewpoint is applicable to landscape, travel, nature or any non-people genre of photography, IMO.

 

[mfogiel]

My experience is usually opposite. In Europe, people associate B&W photography with something more "real" and authentic, than colour. When I make a gift of a B&W print, it is perceived as a premium artifact respect to a colour snap on facebook or the like.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Do people "get" photography? That's the same question: never mind colour or B+W. As mentioned above, yes if there's something to "get". Not otherwise.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Michael Markey]

My experience has been just the opposite.
People prefer my black and white shots and are invariably disappointed whenever I do colour.

 

[kennylovrin]

I think it is because people that are not interested in photography or art per se, they just see black and white as a choice of technology, and it as "last years technology" because color photography is "newer".

What I mean is, it's the same reaction as if you'd still have a black and white TV at home, or ride a horse to work. They just see it as "why are you doing like that when there is something newer and better".

 

[kennylovrin]

Also, for most people I think photography is about documenting, family photos etc, they are not for the art value, it's for documentation to aid in remembering moments.

And because our world is in color, a color photograph is a more accurate documentation.

 

[Photo_Smith]

And because our world is in color...

Actually that's incorrect there is no colour in the world, colour is a perceptual thing that occurs in the viewer 🙂

I think of it like this; if a subject won't be enhanced by using colour use mono.

 

[Chris101]

What's wrong with honesty? Rather than trying not to sound pretentious, or pretending you are colourblind or whatever, why not just explain what your reasons honestly are?

I don't "get" why people just can't say what they think. If you can't articulate why you choose to do something a certain way, maybe you should question why you do it that way. But making up stories about why you do something, especially when someone seems interested enough to ask, is disingenuous.

I don't pretend I'm colorblind, but I prefer the term deuteranopic. Do you really think that missing the "M" color sensors in my retinas doesn't inform my photography?

It's not my duty to explain B&W photography to those who do not "get it". Surely they have been exposed to it. My explanation is unlikely to change their mind.

 

[Brian Atherton]

Many of the people I know don’t ‘get’ photography beyond commenting when asked, that a photo – any photo, whether it be black and white or colour – looks ‘nice’.

 

[craygc]

Having lived in Asia for over 15 years, an interesting observation is that, Chinese, and in particular those in South East Asia, see B&W imagery as synonymous with being past tense and representing death.

 

[jippiejee]

In discussions about the choice for b/w and colour, I usually make the analogy of charcoal sketches vs oil paintings. Both beautiful media: the first with its emphasis on structure and composition, the latter focusing on detail and tone.

Both expressions in the same visual language: the first being a poem, the latter a song.

 

[jsrockit]

I'm not a fine art photographer by any means, but I've been accused of being unnecessarily artsy fartsy with photos. I like high contrast, moody pictures sometimes, but it's as if people want (and expect) to see snapshots. I've been asked to take photos at family occasions and people who see the photos seem disappointed they aren't all in colour. (They also wonder why I seem to snap hundreds of shots but present a couple of dozen, but that's another story.)

These people just want social photos. They are not into art. Do what works for you. Don't photograph these occasions... let someone with an iPhone do it. It has nothing to do with B&W.