Those of you who shoot in B&W: don't you miss color?

raid said:
I always have an internal struggle when I get the temptation to replace color with B&W, whether it is film or digital.

What goes through your minds when you decide on using B&W, and ho did you get started on such a path by which you ignore colors and by which you favor grades of grey instead?
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Raid: your mindset is that color is the "normal" and b&w is some "deviation from normal". That is OK, we all think differently. Some of us think there is nothing wrong with color so long as the images have a reason to be in color.

I choose to work almost exclusively in b&w because I feel monochrome better conveys the information / emotion I wish. Color is just not a part of that equation but does mask our inability to convey what we want when something is merely a "nice photo". A photo that works in color but falls flat in b&w is an indication that I have failed in my objective. Other folks have different objectives, some being happy with "nice photos".
 
Simply explaining myself, and not wanting to sway anyone:

When I make a successful B&W picture, I know that it's success is because of something(s) other than pretty colours.
 
I often go out and about with two cameras of the same make, one loaded with B&W, the other with colour print film, and use them in about equal measure.

Street shooting and portraiture mostly in B&W, landscape and architecture mostly in colour.
Both have their attractions and uses, both are equally enjoyable.
 
this is one of the wonders of digital, that you can do both at the same time and compare them side by side. my gxr allows two side by side color/b&w jpegs and i often shoot my x100 in raw (color) plus b&w jpeg. it amazes me how some times my contemporaneous feel for which i'd prefer is off. as someone said above, some scenes 'cry out' for color. i think some also 'cry out' for b&w, like when texture or tonal variations or shadow effects are important to convey. but the majority of shots are 'toss ups' as they dont 'cry out' for either. in those situations its great to have the ability to view the scene side by side to decide which better conveys the scene. i am constantly amazed at what a different feel the same scene comveys with or without color. i highly recommend shooting digital this way, it is extremely rewarding and educating.
tony
 
I still shoot most of my commercial assignments in color but for my personal work I have been seeing in B&W for some time now and I do not miss color for my personal work. Picked up an MM about a month ago. No regrets at all.
 
To answer Raids question; When I shot b+w exclusively, I did not miss color at all. I was taught in b+w, and I saw in b+w. I eventually switched to shooting slides, because I was frustrated with the crappy darkroom I was using and I did not have the time to make it better. At first I was taking monochrome images with 'bonus' color, but over time I started seeing the colors. I look less for shapes and composition, and more for a kind of balance in the image. Now I think I'd have a hard time switching back (I probably could if I tried). It is just a different way of seeing.

FrankS said:
Colour focuses attention onto the surface of things; black and white somehow allows us to see more profoundly. Our 3-D world is abstracted by photography's 2-D projection, and the additional layer of abstraction of monochrome representation with black and white film, causes the viewer to conceptualize the scene, to see not the thing itself, but the idea of the thing, thusly engaging the mind
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To me this sounds like the old idea that color photography is less artful because it is too realistic. It takes about 2 minutes on instagram to realize that more abstraction does not equal more meaning. I don't think either color or b+w are inherently more abstract or more real.
Most photography is balancing somewhere between the extremes of being purely graphic, 2d abstraction (like Moriyama, or Warhol's screen prints), or whether it is a window to another reality, as if you are peeping through a keyhole into a forbidden world. The most graphic photography makes you wonder how this thing was derived from reality, while the most hyper-real images makes you wonder how such a thing or situation could ever exist. I don't think either is inherently more engaging.
In the end good art engages, and bad art doesn't.
 
I started shooting B&W while in high school and still use it today...B&W is about the Light and that's why I love it...
I remember the first time I developed some slide film in school...at first I thought I did something wrong since they came out flat but it turn out that I was so used to shoot B&W that I wasn't looking for bright colors...the next roll was so much better...
I use both B&W and Color so I don't miss either...
I also find it easy to switch from shooting B&W to Color film while using two cameras at the same time...my mind just switches when I change cameras...
B&W forces you to know and see your Light...to know when it's there and when it's not...sometimes Color works simply because of bright colors where if you tried the same scene in B&W it won't
Always know what you're shooting and how to best use it...
 
Bob Michaels said:
Raid: your mindset is that color is the "normal" and b&w is some "deviation from normal". That is OK, we all think differently. Some of us think there is nothing wrong with color so long as the images have a reason to be in color.

I choose to work almost exclusively in b&w because I feel monochrome better conveys the information / emotion I wish. Color is just not a part of that equation but does mask our inability to convey what we want when something is merely a "nice photo". A photo that works in color but falls flat in b&w is an indication that I have failed in my objective. Other folks have different objectives, some being happy with "nice photos".
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Well Bob, I may view life in color, so this becomes to me the "truth". I like color and also B&W, but most of my potography has been in color. I did some B&W developing and then pinting, but thi was a while ago.
I now have the M8 set to B&W, while the M9 is set to color.
 
I suppose that I like both forms though I prefer the 'B&W film look' myself. It's fun and easy! The process, that is.
I could see the advantages of a 'monochrome' digital camera though. I'd rather not think about it; by design, this is a monochromatic photographing device only. I like that mindset, up front, defining tools and their purpose and then working within the parameters.
 
The reason for starting this thread is to learn about the minds of photographers as they decide which type of photography to choose. Helen started recently a thread about color photogaphy. I want to benefit from your thoughts and opinions. I do not view color as the norm.
 
To me, B&W is irrevocably tied to truly excellent, museum-quality printing. Without that, most B&W images are boring to me, too flat, too one-dimensional. Computer screens are especially bad for B&W.
 
When I first started shooting digital seriously I almost exclusively shot in black and white, following my film practice. But over time I did miss colour and started shooting more and more in colour - initially because I followed the advice that when shooting digital, it is inherently superior to shoot colour then transform afterwards in post processing.

But over time, I found myself converting to black and white less and less, preferring instead to find colour shots that are interesting in their own right. Oh, I still shoot black and white sometimes, but whereas the ratio was originally 90:10 in favour of black and white its now the other way around and usually what I do is only convert to BW when I am convinced a particular image is more effective in black and white.

But I try not to shoot "normal" colour which I find can be a little boring. Instead I fritz around with my colour photos in post processing to get a more artistic image. Those who have seen my shots posted on this site know that my colour shots are seldom plain Jane, representational / picture post card images - almost always there will be some kind of twist to the quality of the colour.
 
"I hear that from many but don't personally understand [relate to] it much, I can imagine what something might look good in black and white based on past experience, but I see everything I look at in color. I cannot turn color off."

Then you see in color and thats quite alright. Where you see color I see tonal relationships along with a lot of other visual elements but I also see those other elements in my color work to.
 
I remember distinctly buying my first roll of black and white film over 30 years ago, just to try out the old obsolete stuff. I fully expected to be disappointed with the results.

Exactly the opposite happened. When I got the prints back from the lab, I was stunned. They were breathtaking. You know that feeling you get when you do something that turns out a whole lot better than you ever hoped it would? That's how it felt. I was not a great photographer by any means, but here were some outstanding pictures.


To me, a black and white picture works better than a color picture on an emotional and artistic level given the right subject matter. The shades of gray bring out the grain in wood much better, and the shapes and patterns within the picture. Black and white is not just a record of what was there - in fact it is not really an accurate record at all. Quite often, the black and white version just looks better than what the eyes saw. Of course, I've taken a lot of pictures in black and white that just didn't work at all - the subjects needed the color to even be distinguishable. So, the trial and error keep me interested, along with the occasional black and white pictures that look much better than the real world.
 
I shoot primarily in black and white for a couple of reasons:

1. I enjoy the ritual. I like reaching into my box of spent rolls and spooling them to the reel and sitting in my tiny half-bath listening to Son Volt and agitating the drum.

2. I'm not good at colors. This might sound a little child-like, but I tend to reference my outfit with my wife first because I tend to not put colors together well. I'm getting better...

As well, I tend to lean towards the idea that color can distract from the subject. Note the "can" and not "does." It's not finite and others do much better with color and subject than I do myself. I just think that in my own experience, I haven't yet learned to harness the application of color to add to the aesthetic values of my images.
 
Morry Katz said:
I shoot b&w because it is subtle. Shapes, tones, and textures are dominant. The end result is an image that invites close inspection. Colour images are about colour. The chromatic content overwhelms every other aspect. Decidedly unsubtle.
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This.

And, I shoot a Ricoh GXR-M. I set the file type to DNG, but the finder to B&W and as a result I can easily find my darks and lights, textures and shapes in shots, while the camera still records a color image.

When I get home I have shots that will work well in B&W but they are color DNG's so I can at any time decide to have them in color anyway.

IMHO the biggest advantage that the EVF-based Ricoh GXR-M has over a Leica M9 or Monochrom.
 
When I got into photography as a serious hobby in 2005, I had expected to shoot mainly color. However, about three or so months after picking up a Canon 350D DSLR, I decided to switch to black and white, and I haven't had any regrets since then.

However, dramatic shifts have pretty much been the pattern. In early 2007, I put an East German-era Zeiss Jena on my 350D, and from that point, I never used autofocus lenses, or for that matter zooms.

In March 2008, I switched to film, and I have not used a DSLR since.

As to why I started shooting B&W exclusively, I think this owes much to the post processing aspect, at least initially. I simply found that I enjoyed processing monochrome shots more so than color. That I am partially colorblind to green & red might have had something to do with it as well.

Additionally, black & white shots just hit me in a different way, tonal gradation and illumination being favorable aesthetic factors. Even before I dived into photography, I was always partial to watercolor and Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints, where subtle gradation (even amidst the often vibrant colors of certain ukiyo-e prints) drew me in.

All of this said, I think exceptional color is very difficult, but when done well, it has remarkable effect, as demonstrated by, among others, the works of Ernst Hass, William Eggleston, Martin Parr, Joel Meyerowitz, and Alex Webb.
 
i was born old, so i "see" light in black and white. even in color.
i shoot digital in color, and convert most keepers to BW. because light's the thing. (yeah, i know it has a spectrum of color; still looks best in BW most of the time.) 🙂l
 
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