What do you do when you see the world in colour?

[TEZillman]

The realization has hit me that I am a colour film photographer. I see the world in colour. I love colour. I seek it out. Almost all my work has been in colour, so much so that it took me forever to finish my last roll of B&W film because the entire time I wished I had colour in that camera. And when I got the results back, I again wished I took them with colour film.
Now my colour film stash is dwindling, but my freezer is full of 35mm and mainly 120 B&W emulsions. What to do with them? Sell them off? Trade them for colour film?
I'm not even fussy with colour, I love Fuji C200! I love Kodak ProImage 100! Superia 400? Definitely! Portra? Ok but not a big deal to me. I prefer multiple rolls of the cheap excellent stuff than one of the expensive excellent stuff!

I absolutely get what you’re saying. Sometimes I think it’s because I grew up in the era when everything that was new and exciting was in color; movies, TV, newspapers, books, etc. that were coming out in color were considered way “better” than the old black and white ones. Maybe I’m just brainwashed.

It’s not that I haven’t tried to like black and white. After all, the first photos I took were on 620 black and white film in my father’s old brownie. A friend gave me the contents of his uncle’s darkroom, this was pretty much all top of the line equipment circa 1990 or so, that was left to him in his uncle’s will. I spent several weeks setting it up but have only used it about a half dozen times in the last 7 or 8 years. I try to shoot, develop and print in B & W and while the photos come out fine, they just do nothing for me.

I have been considering trying to develop C41 over the past couple days. My only options now for color developing are either 15 miles away or by mail.

Fortunately I only have a few rolls of B & W in my fridg. I’d sell or trade the ones you have left. If you’re anything like me, they’ll just sit there.

 

[valdas]

Huss, come to Finland in the second part of November - for several months you won’t see any colour, it’s just plain gray, gray, gray - sky, land, buildings... Ok Santa wears some colour stuff, but that’s about it. A lot of opportunities to shoot B&W 🙂

 

[Doug]

Huss, agreed, I think we're on the same page... or at least in the same book! Early-on I always shot color as well as B&W but back in the 60's color in the home darkroom was 'impossible' and I enjoyed the creativity in the B&W darkroom.
When I got an M8 I intended to make use of its enhanced IR sensitivity for B&W results. But I got curious to see the color DNGs and soon I made the sea-change realization that I am a color photographer.
I still have some B&W film in the 'fridge, and will pack a few rolls as a little bonus along with a camera sent to a buyer.

 

[Larry Cloetta]

They are two separate disciplines, two different esthetic worlds which overlap only at the edges.
Natively, obviously, everyone sees in color, but as photographers we can “see” in both if we choose to. You don’t need any training to visualize a photo in color, but B&W is harder, because it isn’t the way we see, as organisms. Nobody does. That’s why setting the LCD to B&W is such a useful training aid.
If you just shoot one or the other exclusively, or almost exclusively, you miss out on half of what photography has to offer. Seems to me, anyway.

 

[Huss]

B&W is for photographing people. Color is for photographing clothes.
That may be somewhat oversimplified, but only just.

You should tell Annie Leibovitz that.

And I guess Kodak for their Portra line of films.

 

[Huss]

If I lived in Huss World, which seems like a delightful prospect even before we account for the SoCal/Santa Monica hues and luminances surrounding him, it might be different. It would be a happy vacation, at least, eating and drinking Ektar and Portra, Superia and Inferia, before I came home and gradially converted everything to charcoal and ash, soot and whitewash!

Lol

But even on a grey rainy day at the beach I seek out colour



(This was either Fuji 200 or 400, I forget)

 

[Huss]

I think you probably need to buy one of these Huss

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Directors-Accessories/ci/5724/N/4028759376

That way you can view the wold as God/Kodak/mythical deity of your choosing intended it. Remember, in the beginning there was Tri-X 🙂

Hey, I just hold up my hands and form the thumb/forefinger on each one to make that pano film format! It's a lot cheaper.

 

[airfrogusmc]

Huss ^^^^Love the above shot. ^^^^
Ernst Haas always prefered overcast for color.

 

[Larry Cloetta]

You should tell Annie Leibovitz that.

And I guess Kodak for their Portra line of films.

Huss,

Think about it some more, you’ll get it. Maybe Annie Leibovitz would even get it, though I doubt it.

The quotation wasn’t original with me. What it refers to....well, never mind, just think about it in broader terms, while smiling, instead of taking it absolutely, and categorically, literally. Color can sometimes be a distraction, and esthetic mistake, when dealing with forms. Like faces. That’s part of it, that’s all I’m saying.
Not every subject is best rendered with color, nor is every subject best rendered with B&W. Let’s put it that way, even though the original way I phrased it was more interesting, if looser, more open to misinterpretation, and more in need of thoughtful pondering.

People should do what they like doing, though, when all is said and done.
Keep up the good work.

 

[Huss]

Huss,

Think about it some more, you’ll get it. Maybe Annie Leibovitz would even get it, though I doubt it.

The quotation wasn’t original with me. What it refers to....well, never mind, just think about it in broader terms, while smiling, instead of taking it absolutely, and categorically, literally. Color can sometimes be a distraction, and esthetic mistake, when dealing with forms. Like faces. That’s part of it, that’s all I’m saying.
Not every subject is best rendered with color, nor is every subject best rendered with B&W. Let’s put it that way, even though the original way I phrased it was more interesting, if looser, more open to misinterpretation, and more in need of thoughtful pondering.

People should do what they like doing, though, when all is said and done.
Keep up the good work.

Indeed Larry, indeed.

🙂

 

[Richard G]

“The privilege of a lifetime is to be who you are.” Joseph Campbell

Colour photography is wonderful. I think it is harder. It is also different. But it needn’t be. Fred Herzog’s output is interesting. Apparently the ease of shooting Kodachrome and mailing it off was what led to his early colour.

Sometimes I feel the difference of what I’m doing depending on whether I have black and white or colour in the camera. I pursued for a time a project which I called colour black and white: something with serious intent, compositional rigour and a muted colour range and intensity that had a monochrome aesthetic without the Stewie Griffin nag that I was being pretentious with my cast iron lawn chair and it’s shadow.

All this is why I love my M9. I can have it all.

 

[Tim Murphy]

Do you see in color?

Do you see in color?

Dear Huss,

If so, then color it is.

Many people think their absolute should be your absolute.

I can respect and admire all the time and effort it takes to accurately portray all 18 shades of grey in one picture.

But it's still just grey to his kid.

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂

 

[Huss]

..
Many people think their absolute should be your absolute.

..

Dear Tim

Unfortunately I am guilty of that too! Often I need to step back and re-assess.

Kind regards
Huss