back alley
IMAGES
i have never really liked colour photography although when i first started out shooting i did a little. and when i volunteered at the local music festival i did shoot it every year...but for my own stuff i just loved the look and feel of black and white.
but lately, i can see where colour can be an essential part of the image, especially when colour surrounds the subject.
i shoot the local farmer's market most every saturday morning and the colours can be vibrant and they seem essential to some of the local artist/venders.
what about you?
do you shoot colour and why?
have you had a change of heart similar to mine?
or are you still a black & white shooter only?
but lately, i can see where colour can be an essential part of the image, especially when colour surrounds the subject.
i shoot the local farmer's market most every saturday morning and the colours can be vibrant and they seem essential to some of the local artist/venders.
what about you?
do you shoot colour and why?
have you had a change of heart similar to mine?
or are you still a black & white shooter only?
NathanJD
Well-known
I don't limit myself. i find that black and white is good for shooting people andgeometric things but wildlife, naure and fetivals call for colour because they are all so vibrant.
mfunnell
Shaken, so blurred
Some subjects require colour:
(How would I explain "Rainbow Lorikeet" in B&W?)
While for some others it would be a positive negative (
if you will):
Title: Camouflage for a Rainy Day
For urban scenes, for some (probably many) reasons I tend to prefer B&W:
(Colour original, converted to B&W)
While for nature/wildlife I tend to prefer colour:
But that distinction doesn't always hold:
What is true is that I prefer film (even converted colour) to digital for B&W.
...Mike
(How would I explain "Rainbow Lorikeet" in B&W?)
While for some others it would be a positive negative (
if you will):Title: Camouflage for a Rainy Day
For urban scenes, for some (probably many) reasons I tend to prefer B&W:
(Colour original, converted to B&W)
While for nature/wildlife I tend to prefer colour:
But that distinction doesn't always hold:
What is true is that I prefer film (even converted colour) to digital for B&W.
...Mike
Last edited:
bmattock
Veteran
I like both. I use color when I want to show you something and black & white when I want to tell you something.
mfunnell
Shaken, so blurred
helen.HH
To Light & Love ...
I'm slowly coming round to it...
I find I ADORE it & am Drawn to It
in other People's Work
but I Do It rather sparingly
It can be Either Distracting OR Exhilarating
I find I ADORE it & am Drawn to It
in other People's Work
but I Do It rather sparingly
It can be Either Distracting OR Exhilarating
mwooten
light user
My thoughts have mostly been to use color when color needs to be used. I'm sure there is a deeper philosophy behind that, but I'm not sure exactly how to express it.
--michael
--michael
FrankS
Registered User
For me:
B+W for when the subject is light, form, line, or texture.
Colour obviously for when the subject is colour.
Family and vacation snaps are done in colour so I don't have to maually print them all in B+W.
B+W for when the subject is light, form, line, or texture.
Colour obviously for when the subject is colour.
Family and vacation snaps are done in colour so I don't have to maually print them all in B+W.
Last edited:
Chris101
summicronia
Like Helen, I like to see it, but I don't like to do it.
Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
Processed my first roll of colour film in a while this morning ... from the Bessa 667 ... VC160.
andredossantos
Well-known
I don't have any strict guidelines about when to use one or the other. I generally have one camera with each when I go out to shoot and the subjects dictate.
Pherdinand
the snow must go on
for me it's hit and miss, many cases colour is a failure when i look at the result and that pisses me off and makes me "decide" to stick to BW but then i always return
one of the excuses to return to color is that i still have some niiice e100gx in the fridge...
and as said above, some things just don't work without colours.
one of the excuses to return to color is that i still have some niiice e100gx in the fridge...
and as said above, some things just don't work without colours.
I prefer color, Black and White every so often.
The world is full of color, and used correctly is an important part of the image.
But I like both.
The world is full of color, and used correctly is an important part of the image.
But I like both.
35mmdelux
Veni, vidi, vici
Im drawn to the colours of Kodachrome, Asta 100F and dye-transfers. I shoot 1 B&W to 10 colour rolls.
Bob Michaels
nobody special
Since I am always shooting for a personal project or series, rather than individual photos, there is only the initial decision of b&w vs. color. I have never done a series that was both b&w and color and cannot foresee such in the future.
I believe the message I want my photos to deliver is typically best accomplished in b&w. So that is what I normally use.
My Six Months on the Daytona Beach Boardwalk series http://bobmichaels.org/boardwalk-intro.htm was one that I thought was best communicated in color. So I shot 120 chrome for six months.
I did my short Sept 11th fifth anniversary series http://bobmichaels.org/intro_9112006.htm in color but that was mostly me seeing if I could come to like shooting digital. Plus I was not sure of flying into/out of NYC on Sept. 10th and 11th carrying large amounts of film.
Other than that, it has been b&w. I have 50 rolls of b&w film ready to go to Cuba because it is what works for me.
Of course I end up doing the typical family shots which, like many, I do in color so I don't have to bother with the processing.
But I have been looking at more and more serious documentary work done in color and considering that. I think eventually another project will come along that I will shoot in color for something different.
I believe the message I want my photos to deliver is typically best accomplished in b&w. So that is what I normally use.
My Six Months on the Daytona Beach Boardwalk series http://bobmichaels.org/boardwalk-intro.htm was one that I thought was best communicated in color. So I shot 120 chrome for six months.
I did my short Sept 11th fifth anniversary series http://bobmichaels.org/intro_9112006.htm in color but that was mostly me seeing if I could come to like shooting digital. Plus I was not sure of flying into/out of NYC on Sept. 10th and 11th carrying large amounts of film.
Other than that, it has been b&w. I have 50 rolls of b&w film ready to go to Cuba because it is what works for me.
Of course I end up doing the typical family shots which, like many, I do in color so I don't have to bother with the processing.
But I have been looking at more and more serious documentary work done in color and considering that. I think eventually another project will come along that I will shoot in color for something different.
Dave Wilkinson
Veteran
Today I have enjoyed looking at the many excellent submissions ( both mono and colour ) in the various 'no gear' threads. The day was about pictures, and I am in no way criticising, or complaining - it does not matter to me, but I reckon that over ninety per cent were taken with either a DSLR or digital compact. Of course - there is no way of knowing, and like I said it really does'nt matter, but would be interesting reading ( to me-at least ) on a dedicated rangefinder site. Just a sign of the times - I suppose, and just my thoughts, as I browse the submissions.
Cheers, Dave.
Cheers, Dave.
charjohncarter
Veteran
I enjoy both, but I find after I got my B&W 'workflow' down, I can get just about what I want every time. Color though is more illusive for me. I get color negatives that I am endlessly tweaking to get just the feeling I want. I also never have the feeling of control over color that I do with B&W. I have all kinds of color correction programs, some in editing programs, some plugin or stand alone. CFSystem Neg seems to have all the controls you could want, but it is complicated and I'm not there yet with it.
Chris101
summicronia
I've noticed that the times I prefer color is either when it just works, or when I intentionally add it.
Sparrow
Veteran
Even when I was a child I can remember looking at that water lily painting that Claud Monte did and wondering if he had seen those colours in some different way to the way I did. I had no thought or concept of colour theory or perception and philosophy wasn't in my dictionary back then, but over the years as facts presented themselves or the Beeb broadcast some relevant Horizon program I cobbled together a vague understanding of how and why we see colour as we do and how I can make use of that understanding.
600 million years ago when the first multi cellular organisms appeared those that were more sensitive to light ate those that were less. Then later those that were more sensitive to changes in the light ate those that were less sensitive to changes in the light. That went on for a bit until everything moved about had eyes of some sort and our ancestors were up a tree in Mozambique looking for berries.
Where those that saw the world like this prospered;
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2587/3739310065_710e25c2ba.jpg
more than those that saw it like this,
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2421/3740104310_e06c748fd9.jpg
So by the time modern man came along he had an eye that had a sensor that had four components. A set of cells (the so called rods) to detect light and dark with something like a 24 stop range, well mine have anyway. And for colour a set cells (cone cells) that are divided into three different types each sensitive to the three Rood primary colours (more of Rood later) all a bit like my Canon printerís ink-set
I should more properly say modern woman, modern man isnít as well adapted around 10% being colour-blind, perhaps the men less gathering and more hunting (or chatting about flint)
Now the eye has a few limitations, it is specialised in a narrow frequency band; it de-saturates in low light and the massive 160íish degree FOV reduces the refresh rate down to around 15 frames per second, (a domestic cat is around 80 fps which explains how they catch flies and why they don't watch telly). However it has one huge advantage in that our brains uses a very advanced version of Photoshop so most of the time so we hardly notice our own limitations.
Mankind then bumbled along using natural pigments to decorate themselves and their surroundings' until well into the renaissance, colour being used symbolically as likely as not. The Virgin Mary is almost always painted in blue clothing in the middle-ages simply because the pigment, ultramarine (literally over-the-sea) blue, was made from Lapis lazuli from Afghanistan and was hideously expensive so was representative of her status.
In the 16 century, having made rules for everything else, attempts were starting to bring reason to colour, Newton was the about the first to make some sense, although attempts were made earlier. From observations of light refracted by prisms Newton came up with a circular diagram with 7 segments and 3 elemental colours, and then it all starts getting rather complicated, ever more complex models being constructed to represent perceived colour, in turn Maxwell, Rood and Munsell were among many who had a go, one was even called Boring which they all are.
Rood at the time was a bit of a darling for the impressionists, and Pointillism was based almost completely on his model, but to my eye non really describe what I actually see.
What they were up against was this; look at the bag, chances are you can tell what colour it is ...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3484/3740107254_28f34935d2.jpg
... despite the strong cyan filter
so this doesn't come as much of a surprise
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2595/3739309869_02ee65f11b.jpg
until you see the two bags side by side, that is
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2527/3740107460_a1f284ec6e.jpg
Which is why one doesn't see the red colour cast under tungsten lights until the prints come back from the chemist
So after all that the rational scientists came up with the ... the colour wheel, bit of a disappointment that
Oh, and those colour modes in photoshop that no one quite sure what to do with.
This is what Rood came up with, he was an American physicist who took up painting and started to a apply science to art, and published a book on the subject towards the end of 19th century. It looks a bit archaic and unscientific with all those pigment names but one has to remember there were almost no synthetic pigments at the time.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2542/3742309410_d47a54bfef.jpg
A chap called Perkin stumbled on Mauveine, a synthetic mauve while looking for a cure for malaria, became filthy rich and spawned a whole generation of wanabe organic chemists that went on to develop the modern pigments and dyes, so colour film I suppose is all the fault of a mosquito
The arts at the time were for the firs time undergoing revolutionary change, previous generations had looked to build on what already existed, but all that changed with the Pre-Raphaelites who while not strictly speaking Avant-garde they were definitely revolutionary. The world had already been confused by the abstractions of Turnerís later work, John Ruskin burned the porno stuff so Turner never got true recognition.
So in the finale years of the 19th c it wasn't surprising when the impressionists came along and gave the world the other barrel, armed with photography, some newly developed colours in tubes! And these new fangled colour ìtheoriesî they were the first truly Avant-garde group.
When I first joined the wonderful world of work I spent the first few months grinding pigments with a knife and marble pallet, so I can see how liberating the tube of paint would be.
A few minutes in Photoshop makes Roodís triangle more understandable
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2487/3764823277_69b1be4167.jpg
and that begat this type of thing, which is starting to look almost modern
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3443/3765983046_f4a02ed1b2.jpg
Rood then envisioned a cylinder with that wheel in the centre and black and white at either end
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2648/3766163228_c43177fc50.jpg
in such a way that a diagonal section would look like this
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3499/3766223270_32ecd1640d.jpg
whenever I have anything to do with Colour Spaces it's that image that comes to mind, Rood sadly predated Photoshop by over a century so never got the full credit for making an already complex system even more headache inducing
All these perception things are very subjective so none of them are strictly speaking theories or rules, simply tendencies but having said that there are some handy bits and bobs
The Natural Order of Colours ... or how to accessorise and colour coordinate soft furnishings (in a manly way)
A bit of jargon first, so one can sound knowledgeable at exhibitions, coordinate and complementary colour, that's complementary as in balanced or opposite as opposed to complimentary as in that pink really suit you, would you like to go for a drink later on?
and coordinated as in Laura Ashley's. I'm actually going to use Harmony and Dissonance for the sake of simplicity.
So here's how it works, in any horizontal section through the colour space I proposed, colours in any adjacent portions are in harmony, match or coordinate. Those combinations tend to be relaxing and calming.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3426/3768906598_8804477d45_o.jpg
like this
or this
600 million years ago when the first multi cellular organisms appeared those that were more sensitive to light ate those that were less. Then later those that were more sensitive to changes in the light ate those that were less sensitive to changes in the light. That went on for a bit until everything moved about had eyes of some sort and our ancestors were up a tree in Mozambique looking for berries.
Where those that saw the world like this prospered;
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2587/3739310065_710e25c2ba.jpg
more than those that saw it like this,
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2421/3740104310_e06c748fd9.jpg
So by the time modern man came along he had an eye that had a sensor that had four components. A set of cells (the so called rods) to detect light and dark with something like a 24 stop range, well mine have anyway. And for colour a set cells (cone cells) that are divided into three different types each sensitive to the three Rood primary colours (more of Rood later) all a bit like my Canon printerís ink-set
I should more properly say modern woman, modern man isnít as well adapted around 10% being colour-blind, perhaps the men less gathering and more hunting (or chatting about flint)
Now the eye has a few limitations, it is specialised in a narrow frequency band; it de-saturates in low light and the massive 160íish degree FOV reduces the refresh rate down to around 15 frames per second, (a domestic cat is around 80 fps which explains how they catch flies and why they don't watch telly). However it has one huge advantage in that our brains uses a very advanced version of Photoshop so most of the time so we hardly notice our own limitations.
Mankind then bumbled along using natural pigments to decorate themselves and their surroundings' until well into the renaissance, colour being used symbolically as likely as not. The Virgin Mary is almost always painted in blue clothing in the middle-ages simply because the pigment, ultramarine (literally over-the-sea) blue, was made from Lapis lazuli from Afghanistan and was hideously expensive so was representative of her status.
In the 16 century, having made rules for everything else, attempts were starting to bring reason to colour, Newton was the about the first to make some sense, although attempts were made earlier. From observations of light refracted by prisms Newton came up with a circular diagram with 7 segments and 3 elemental colours, and then it all starts getting rather complicated, ever more complex models being constructed to represent perceived colour, in turn Maxwell, Rood and Munsell were among many who had a go, one was even called Boring which they all are.
Rood at the time was a bit of a darling for the impressionists, and Pointillism was based almost completely on his model, but to my eye non really describe what I actually see.
What they were up against was this; look at the bag, chances are you can tell what colour it is ...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3484/3740107254_28f34935d2.jpg
... despite the strong cyan filter
so this doesn't come as much of a surprise
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2595/3739309869_02ee65f11b.jpg
until you see the two bags side by side, that is
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2527/3740107460_a1f284ec6e.jpg
Which is why one doesn't see the red colour cast under tungsten lights until the prints come back from the chemist
So after all that the rational scientists came up with the ... the colour wheel, bit of a disappointment that
Oh, and those colour modes in photoshop that no one quite sure what to do with.
This is what Rood came up with, he was an American physicist who took up painting and started to a apply science to art, and published a book on the subject towards the end of 19th century. It looks a bit archaic and unscientific with all those pigment names but one has to remember there were almost no synthetic pigments at the time.
A chap called Perkin stumbled on Mauveine, a synthetic mauve while looking for a cure for malaria, became filthy rich and spawned a whole generation of wanabe organic chemists that went on to develop the modern pigments and dyes, so colour film I suppose is all the fault of a mosquito
The arts at the time were for the firs time undergoing revolutionary change, previous generations had looked to build on what already existed, but all that changed with the Pre-Raphaelites who while not strictly speaking Avant-garde they were definitely revolutionary. The world had already been confused by the abstractions of Turnerís later work, John Ruskin burned the porno stuff so Turner never got true recognition.
So in the finale years of the 19th c it wasn't surprising when the impressionists came along and gave the world the other barrel, armed with photography, some newly developed colours in tubes! And these new fangled colour ìtheoriesî they were the first truly Avant-garde group.
When I first joined the wonderful world of work I spent the first few months grinding pigments with a knife and marble pallet, so I can see how liberating the tube of paint would be.
A few minutes in Photoshop makes Roodís triangle more understandable
and that begat this type of thing, which is starting to look almost modern
Rood then envisioned a cylinder with that wheel in the centre and black and white at either end
in such a way that a diagonal section would look like this
whenever I have anything to do with Colour Spaces it's that image that comes to mind, Rood sadly predated Photoshop by over a century so never got the full credit for making an already complex system even more headache inducing
All these perception things are very subjective so none of them are strictly speaking theories or rules, simply tendencies but having said that there are some handy bits and bobs
The Natural Order of Colours ... or how to accessorise and colour coordinate soft furnishings (in a manly way)
A bit of jargon first, so one can sound knowledgeable at exhibitions, coordinate and complementary colour, that's complementary as in balanced or opposite as opposed to complimentary as in that pink really suit you, would you like to go for a drink later on?
and coordinated as in Laura Ashley's. I'm actually going to use Harmony and Dissonance for the sake of simplicity.
So here's how it works, in any horizontal section through the colour space I proposed, colours in any adjacent portions are in harmony, match or coordinate. Those combinations tend to be relaxing and calming.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3426/3768906598_8804477d45_o.jpg
like this
or this
Last edited:
Sparrow
Veteran
On the other hand colours that are opposite each other are dissonant (complementary) and those colours in combination tend to be exciting and vibrant.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2505/3768107105_b9c863f250_o.jpg
like this
or this
that last one I saw coming a mile off, and could set it up and just wait, confident it would work simply because I knew the yellow and blue to be dissonant
and not only that, but if we go back to this model
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3499/3766223270_32ecd1640d_m.jpg
and produce a colour wheel where yellow is less saturated and purple is more saturated the effect is reduced (the colours are said to be ìIn natural orderî) they clash less
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3487/3765983174_c647054737_o.jpg
whereas the reverse is true of ... well, the reverse
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3570/3765983242_57dc81c205.jpg