What if all the colours disappeared tomorrow?

[Nick R.]

Like Bill, green defeciency has me living in a world of unnamed colors. Except for Blue and Yellow pigment, everything else is kinda red, kinda brown, kinda green or who knows what. It's like being able to see letters but not the words in a sentence. That said, I love working in color. Very bright and vivid colors appeal to me. Probably why I like slide film so much. When I took drawing in college my instructor said I should be a colorist. I'd hate to live in a world without color.

Here's a link to a color blindness test

 

[bmattock]

Like Bill, green defeciency has me living in a world of unnamed colors. Except for Blue and Yellow pigment, everything else is kinda red, kinda brown, kinda green or who knows what. It's like being able to see letters but not the words in a sentence. That said, I love working in color. Very bright and vivid colors appeal to me. Probably why I like slide film so much. When I took drawing in college my instructor said I should be a colorist. I'd hate to live in a world without color.

Here's a link to a color blindness test

Yeah, I've taken a few of those. In the link you provided, the only one I can 'see' is the '25' in the very first plate. The rest, nothing. The 'bonus' one at the bottom, where I am supposed to see one of two different numbers? Nothing. I see a vague outline of a number, but until I read what I was 'supposed' to see, I didn't see anything at all.

Unlike you, I generally leave bright colors alone - they mock me. I can hear them plotting against me. Argh.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[kmack]

Most of you are too young to remember this but it was not until 1861 that color was invented. The world was black and white until James Clerk Maxwell figured out a way to make colors permanent. We have been living with color ever since.

 

[RML]

Even the cavemen already used colour. And last time I looked, Vermeer used some colour too. He just had to smear it on the canvas is all.

 

[ChrisN]

I dream in black & white. I'd like to continue to wake up to color.

Hey, me too! I put it down to my deprived childhood - we only had a B&W TV. 🙂

 

[Finder]

The world world be a dull place if there was no color. Just think how it would change our language:

1. The guy cut me off and I was seeing gray.
2. I've got those Monday morning grays.
3. We are in the gray.
4. What a toneful language.
5. Gone with the Wind with Gray O'hara and Grey Butler.
6. The Gray Letter
7. I like R&G - Rhythm and Grays
8. Send your loved one gray roses for a special occasion. Light gray for friendship, and dark gray for love.
9. I am gray with envy.
10. He is a gray livered coward.
11. What tone is a newspaper? Black and white and gray all over.
!2. And for the rest of our lives we would have gray days!!!!

 

[thafred]

My point - you can't miss what you never had. I don't 'miss' rainbows, never having seen one.

I think thats the best statement in this thread! You have to experience something to really miss it...that said, it would be a pain for me to wake up colorblind living with colors all my life...
On the other hand, little OT, I am unable to see in 3D Vision ´cus my Brain doesn´t combine the two pictures my eyes see into one 3D Picture (it happened when I was 2 Years old and got measles into my eyes..followed by various operations in my childhood .. the brain never learned to see 3D) ..
I only missed it once, when my Family and I were in Universal Studios in Florida and everyone in the 3D Terminator show awed and wowed, all I was thinking was "what the heck is so interesting here!"..oh well

Then again, photos or movies look realy good and life-like to me and it explains why a good Bokeh picture with a sharp rendered Object of interest looks sooo 3D to me I can almost touch it!! (in reality my Eyes have pretty bad nisen Bokeh I´m Afraid, so I hate taking "mental Pictures" for that reason 😉 )

 

[Andrew Sowerby]

On the other hand, I tend to use light, shadow, and texture to distinguish between objects, instead of color. When I was introduced to the theory of camoflage in the military, I thought it was some kind of hoax - oh, we're supposed to pretend we can't see those guys over there hunkering down in the weeds? I can usually see them, camoflage doesn't work on me. I see well at night, I see movement easily, so I was a good hunter when I used to hunt.

I once heard a theory about why colour-blindness is (almost?) exclusively found in men. Seeing in colour isn't that important for hunting, whereas if you gather the wrong coloured berries you might poison your family. Males that were colour blind weren't really a liability to the species but females who couldn't see in colour were. Natural selection strikes again.

 

[b.e.wilson]

I'd find it a little disturbing. In terms of b&w photography there would be no problem, as you would see your photo as it would appear in print, and I guess you would have an advantage.

Except that a monochrome world means it's impossible to use color filters to control contrast in a shot, resulting in many dull shots.
Bruce

 

[wtl]

What if you woke up tomorrow and found that you could no longer see in colour? I do not mean colour blindness; I mean seeing in total monochrome.

Clarence

clarence: why worry about things that haven't happened yet? silly.

 

[bmattock]

clarence: why worry about things that haven't happened yet? silly.

Yes, you should never plan for your retirement. Why worry about what hasn't happened yet? Silly.

Point being, playing 'what if' games is how we find things out. Requires imagination. Somewhat like being a photographer.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[bmattock]

I once heard a theory about why colour-blindness is (almost?) exclusively found in men. Seeing in colour isn't that important for hunting, whereas if you gather the wrong coloured berries you might poison your family. Males that were colour blind weren't really a liability to the species but females who couldn't see in colour were. Natural selection strikes again.

Certainly possible. As others in this thread have stated, we all see in B&W when light levels drop enough (night, except for big cities), and movement becomes much more obvious. Seems hunting would be enhanced by having some color vision deficiency if it meant seeing movement and patterns more easily. As I mentioned, camoflage tends not to work on me - it makes one a better hunter.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[clarence]

The world world be a dull place if there was no color. Just think how it would change our language:

1. The guy cut me off and I was seeing gray.
2. I've got those Monday morning grays.
3. We are in the gray.
4. What a toneful language.
5. Gone with the Wind with Gray O'hara and Grey Butler.
6. The Gray Letter
7. I like R&G - Rhythm and Grays
8. Send your loved one gray roses for a special occasion. Light gray for friendship, and dark gray for love.
9. I am gray with envy.
10. He is a gray livered coward.
11. What tone is a newspaper? Black and white and gray all over.
12. And for the rest of our lives we would have gray days!!!!

I'd like to think that if enough of us couldn't see in colour anymore, we'd simply devise new words for the thousand different shades of gray.

Clarence

 

[bmattock]

I'd like to think that if enough of us couldn't see in colour anymore, we'd simply devise new words for the thousand different shades of gray.

Clarence

Reminds me of an episode of "Malcom in the Middle" (yes, I admit I saw it once or twice). An eskimo showed up at a guy's house to reclaim his totem pole, and angrily explained that the guy was totally wrong about all his assumptions regarding eskimos. "And we have one word for snow. SNOW!"

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

 

[wtl]

Yes, you should never plan for your retirement. Why worry about what hasn't happened yet? Silly.

Point being, playing 'what if' games is how we find things out. Requires imagination. Somewhat like being a photographer.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

yap, planning on retirement when you are 16 is silly, especially if you don't know if you will live to the date.

and no, planning does not expand your imagination. it eliminates it.

 

[XAos]

we'd simply devise new words for the thousand different shades of gray.
Clarence

And the names would be secretive and meaningless. And the women would still look at us funny for wearing charcoal pants with a smoke shirt.