Why called Black and White

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bwidjaja

Warung Photo
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Just curious, why is it called Black and White photography? Most B&W photos are really shades of gray. Maybe Gray Scale photography?
 
'Cos the blacks are black and the whites are white, and the shades in between are taken for granted.

What about sepia, or other toners?

Cheers,

R.
 
bwidjaja said:
Just curious, why is it called Black and White photography? Most B&W photos are really shades of gray. Maybe Gray Scale photography?
Click to expand...

I doubt you're going to change almost a century of photographic nomenclature referring to "Black & White photography" just because it's technically a bit off the mark. ;-)

I think the term "Black and White photography" arose when Color Photography started to become mainstream. These clips from Wikipedia support that notion ...

wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-and-white

Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.

Black-and-white images are not usually starkly contrasted black and white. They combine black and white in a continuum producing a range of shades of gray. Further, many prints, especially those produced earlier in the development of photography, were in sepia (mainly for archival stability), which yielded richer, more subtle shading than reproductions in plain black-and-white. Color photography provides a much greater range of shade, but part of the appeal of black and white photography is its more subdued monochromatic character.
...

Photography was black-and-white or shades of sepia. Color photography was originally rare and expensive and again often less than true to life. Color photography became more common in the middle of the 20th century and has become even more common since. Nowadays black-and-white has turned into a niche market for photographers who use the medium for artistic purposes. This can take the form of black-and-white film or digital conversion to grayscale, with optional digital image editing manipulation to enhance the results. ...
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etc.

G
 
Yeh, it's just accepted nomenclature that is too old to change.

Technically, you are right: "B&W" = 0,255 but "grayscale" = 0-255. There really is a world of difference between the two concepts, if taken literally.
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grayscale.jpg

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blackwhite.jpg
 
Because they knew "Fifty Shades of Grey" would eventually be used for something else.
 
Because the silver grains are black (ish) and the paper is white (ish). The greys you see are made up of black grains on white paper and are an illusion.

There are many other ways to argue it either way though.
 
I'm sure it will be changed. Probably the first Tuesday after the U.S. switches over to the metric system. :D

But then again... perhaps it should be changed to "noir et blanc" in honor of Messr. Cartier-Bresson. Or maybe it should be "schwarz-weiß" in honor of the redoubtable Oskar Barnack.
 
Just recently learned.
If photos have only shades of gray instead of b/w it means they weren't wet print properly :)
 
That's what they have always said:
"A black and white print should contain every shade from pure white to pure black."
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JMHO, but I disagree. What if your subject has no pure white? Or pure black?

If your print contains either one, your negative or your printing paper must have been incorrectly exposed - right?
 
noisycheese said:
I'm sure it will be changed. Probably the first Tuesday after the U.S. switches over to the metric system. :D

But then again... perhaps it should be changed to "noir et blanc" in honor of Messr. Cartier-Bresson. Or maybe it should be "schwarz-weiß" in honor of the redoubtable Oskar Barnack.
Click to expand...
U.S. Changes to metric system... It won`t happen, tried several times:
Aircraft industry tried to go to metric screws, but realized the screws hold much better in aluminum with coarser threads of the inch system...
Knowing the rednecks etc.. won`t happen anytime soon...
 
Up until the 1950s, I think there was just "photography" and "colour photography", going by my collection of old books and magazines. In the UK, I'm fairly sure this nomenclature lasted well into the 1960s.

I've seen magazines where writers use "monochrome" and other writers use "black and white" in the same issue, this seems to emerge around 1965.

You know something? I think someone could be writing a thesis in this very subject for his D.Lit project.

:D
 
noisycheese said:
I'm sure it will be changed. Probably the first Tuesday after the U.S. switches over to the metric system. :D

But then again... perhaps it should be changed to "noir et blanc" in honor of Messr. Cartier-Bresson. Or maybe it should be "schwarz-weiß" in honor of the redoubtable Oskar Barnack.
Click to expand...

Or kept as B&W in honour of Henry Fox Talbot. But some of us can remember when it was called soot and whitewash in honour of the popularity of colour film...

Regards, David
 
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