Thoughts about color

[Keith]

If I go out with the intention of shooting colour I seldom come home with anything of significance. I think that is me more than the medium though ... perhaps it's because it's taking my focus away from the light of a scene which is really what black and white is all about, combined with composition of course.

 

[charjohncarter]

I'm mostly B&W but in flat scenes, color is the only thing that will give contrast (unless you want to go crazy in PS). I still struggle with 35mm color, 120 is my minimum for acceptable C-41. Sometimes I like my E-6 in 35mm.

One of my few (now that Kodachrome is gone) favorite E-6 (35mm) photos:

 

[Spanik]

Colour is so much part of the subject that taking it away leaves nothing of value to me. I can't shoot anything in b&w and like it. First thought when seeing a b&w is "what is missing because of the missing colours?".

Like if you would take a portrait of a punk in b&w. The colour of his hair is very much part of his personality. And with b&w you're taking that away.

I have a feeling that much b&w is done because it is considered "art".

 

[Mystyler]

Colour makes me happy.

I love the challenge of taking a colourful photo that is free from "colour noise" for lack of a better term...? 😕

 

[thompsonks]

Several replies suggest that the photographer switches back and forth readily between BW and color. I don't find I can do that – for me they're different ways of seeing, each of which becomes a habit. Now that I've shot mostly color for a decade, I find I really don't 'see' in BW any more; when I try, it's a quite self-conscious shift.

I do make some BW conversions from color files and negatives, when I can tell after the fact that an image didn't work well in color but has BW potential. But I don't see this as salvaging excrement; it's just a second guess, and sometimes I make desaturated digital contact sheets, just-to-see.

What I like most about shooting color and converting to BW is that I can use the color sliders separately in LR or PS to re-balance the tones in a composition, turning, for example, an eye-arresting light gray area to a subtler mid-gray. It's like using a different filter on separate parts of the image.

I admit that conversion results in some loss of resolution, both in digital files (in comparison to monochrome M!) and when using Portra instead of TX.

Anyhow my point is that a color or BW 'habit,' when using one's camera with any subject matter that doesn't hold still for you to think about it, is part of the intuitive act of framing the image. It's a bit like being right-handed or left-handed, and it's not easy or common to be ambidextrous.

Kirk

 

[grapejohnson]

I feel like I have a strange mental block when I shoot color. I have to stop for a second and reconsider everything due to the color. Sometimes I also begin to take a picture and realize that it's just the colors I'm seeing that are interesting and stop. I have less to consider with black and white. How dark are things, how should I expose it, what about the composition, and that's it.

I've thought about going in the darkroom with a camera and having two rolls of film and loading one in the dark without knowing if it was black and white or color and seeing what kind of pictures I'd take.

 

[Pioneer]

My love/hate relationship is with black and white, not color. I enjoy looking at other people's black and white pictures, but it still doesn't work for me.

It is all in how I see and I see color far more easily and naturally. I don't see black and white very easily and I know that shows in my pictures. All that being said however, I am working primarily with black and white film right now so that I can learn to see those shapes, forms and contrasts that make up a powerful black and white image.So far I am not sure it is working.

 

[cosmonaut]

Well my thought is this. If color adds nothing for the image and high contrast scenes is good for B&W, street shooting is better in B&W for the most part. Ansle Adams is the only photographer I ever saw that could make exclusive B&W landscapes work so who am I to make one? He spend many many hours in the field and in the darkroom. There are no telling the techniques he used and invented.
I read seeing one of his original prints was mind blowing.

My thought about color is a question. When is it best to use color? When B&W? I've never got a good grip on this. I generally like using color media more, just because my eye enjoys looking at the colored world. For me, one of the HUGE benefits of digital photography is that I can change my mind after I make the image. And the current crop of image processing software makes this transformation a pleasure to look at.

I do feel, as some others have said here, that B&W can be overused. It has the potential to add drama where none actually existed. I find that using color for street photography forces me to be much more honest with myself about the significance of a street scene; more considerate about whether the scene is actually worth photographing, or is it just attractive because of the color element.

 

[Murchu]

Colour is harder to shoot well. It's a different sort of photography. I like the challenge. Seldom succeed.

I've often wondered is this because everything that makes a b&w image good, also apply to a colour image, whereas with colour, you have all those elements and the additional element of colour itself, which may not play well with those other elements. Also, I suppose, drama via local contrast is more easily added, and also to much higher levels, with a b&w image than a colour image.

 

[Bill Clark]

100% digital for making color photographs.

Years ago, I used to process my own C-41 and print. I have a color analyzer that I used that got me pretty well situated with proper filters. However, back in the 1970's I used color slide film, had it processed then would have a slide show with the B&G with a Kodak Carousel projector. I still have it! Color slide processing and mounting was considerably less money than negative processing and prints. My favorite slide film was Ektachrome-X at 64 ASA. I would leave the ring off of the center of the tray as this was to insure the slides stayed in place. Sometimes I'd forget and it can be, with a oops, kinda like 52 card pickup!

Then when I actually conduced the slide show, when either or both B&G or other folks would say, "I like that one," I would pull out the slide, put it into another tray that would be the finals to review for printing. I then printed the slides on 8/10 paper, used a drum for processing, get a blank wedding album, put in the prints and that was that way back then.

Gotta remember that this was during the days many folks didn't have much moola to spend on photography. An associate photographer that worked with me didn't even have the money for a photographer when she got married so no wedding photographs. All this sizzle spent today doesn't insure successful marriages. She and her husband have been married since 1966!

 

[MIkhail]

These turds HAD to be polished these IR photos are "turdish" in color straight form the camera. I had a "vision" for each photo and polished accordingly. It's nice to have options.

Second picture is beyond good and evil.

 

[MIkhail]

I use color when color stands on his own, in other words when it's pivotal in a picture.
Here is a recent example.
This photograph is nothing without color.

Or here is another example.

Digital, film, polaroid, all the same principles. Color as means of expression, not an addition that you can add or subtract with "saturation" button.

 

[Exdsc]

The world is in color.

 

[peterm1]

As much as I like the idea of shooting black and white I almost exclusively shoot colour now. Initially it started as I recognised that when shooting digital it made sense to shoot in colour then convert in post processing to mono. BUt increasingly I found I did not actaully end up doing this and now, mostly t I keep the colour in my images. But I am not one who believes that the colour has to exactly match real life. In fact doing so detracts from the image very often. I actually prefer to manipulate colour in post to get an effect I like (often low saturation/ high contrast). As much as I want to shoot black and white I have found I just like colour too much. For example in the following image I think it would be a bit ordinary in BW. And neither is it exactly as it was in real life - more like I wished it to be.

Restaurant kitchen Kowloon by yoyomaoz, on Flickr

 

[mwoenv]

I always carry two bodies, one loaded with color and one with b&w. It's color when color is an essential part of the image and b&w when color will distract from what I'm trying to show. So both are valuable.