Why I prefer black and white

[Nokton48]

Sometimes, the subject can be color itself, the great Pete Turner comes immediately to mind. Love his stuff.

I get great personal satisfaction from well-done B&W. I shoot lots of color, too. Either one can be an effective design tool.
Tri-X and XX for me, too, and least, in my Leicas. They are for the fleeting stuff.

 

[Denis M.]

I shoot black and white because it's easy to work with.

I find that I tend to gravitate towards a lot of high iso stuff, and getting a good color balance at high iso is either difficult or expensive. I used to use Superia 800 but I found it difficult to balance the colors and Superia 1600 while worked well is expensive. Black and white on the other hand is forgiving, easy to develop, much cheaper to develop, predictable and expires more gracefully.

If the storage life of color development chemicals wasn't so horribly short, and the color film I have wasn't so horribly expired, maybe I'd give it another shot one of these days.

I should add, I actually hate making prints. I find that I rather have the photo right out of the camera. I do not like to do much post-processing with digital either (even though it's needed), but that's another story.

 

[bmattock]

Color photos are about color. B&W photos are about the subjects depicted.

 

[MISH]

I grew up watching old movies on a (grainy) b&w TV. that along with the weekly arrival of LIFE magazine and my photographic future was set to black and white. plus still love the darkroom and all the fun of processing and printing

 

[bmattock]

Pentagon take note, all snipers should be color blind. 😉

Were you not aware that is the case?

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/humanvision/colorblindness/index.html

In spite of the limitations, there are some visual acuity advantages to color blindness, such as the increased ability to discriminate camouflaged objects. Outlines rather than colors are responsible for pattern recognition, and improvements in night vision may occur due to certain color vision deficiencies. In the military, colorblind snipers and spotters are highly valued for these reasons.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Color photos are about color. B&W photos are about the subjects depicted.

eh, maybe a little reductive. I think color photos are about one more thing than B&W photos are about, and that thing is color. But color photos are also about the subject, about light, about tonality, like B&W ones.

It takes a particular kind of talent, or a particular eye for color, to exploit this additional visual element. A lousy color photo just ends up being just about color; a good one uses the color to honor the subject.

 

[bmattock]

eh, maybe a little reductive. I think color photos are about one more thing than B&W photos are about, and that thing is color. But color photos are also about the subject, about light, about tonality, like B&W ones.

It takes a particular kind of talent, or a particular eye for color, to exploit this additional visual element. A lousy color photo just ends up being just about color; a good one uses the color to honor the subject.

Here's what I mean.



If this photo were in B&W, what would it be about? Shape, light and shadow, texture, symbolic value. With color, what is it about? The color of the flower and background.

It may also be a lousy color photo. My point though is that I use color when color is the point, and I use B&W when it is not the color I wish to draw attention towards. Not always, of course, but often.

 

[shadowfox]

With my current main focus to learn darkroom printing, it's B&W all the way.

As of late, I am drawn/intrigued/interested in toning my prints. I always like the look of a toned B&W prints. And I find the process to obtain such looks are the natural extension once I can do the basics in a predictable manner.

Anybody want to chime in on their preference on toned vs "neutral" B&W prints or scans?

 

[bmattock]

Anybody want to chime in on their preference on toned vs "neutral" B&W prints or scans?

I have seen some amazing work with various tones, including split-tones, etc. I am not capable of such high levels of work, so I try to keep it simple. Occasionally a sepia tone, but otherwise straight.

 

[ruben]

It is not that BW is out of fashion, of course, but very obviously it lost its monopoly over the masses long ago, on behalf of color. This, in my opinion, is a factor keeping me thinking about the tones for my street photography.

This thread has taken for granted that BW=FILM=Darkroom, while COLOR= DIGITAL RECORDING. It is important to be aware of these associations since we nowadays can control and maximize creativity of color more than with BW.

The next step within the context of the discussion will be very problematic to us, if control and creativity of BW through the computer will be greater than at the wet darkroom.

As for my personal preferences of color or BW, I follow Tom A, in the accesibility of control. I, e, BW, i,e, wet. But this is prompt to change, pending color printer affordability here.

Now, I would like to draw attention that we have sinned here in reducing BW into some uniform type of image and we have done the same with "color".

I think that a world with a wider spectrum of choices will become more interesting, and harder, for me. But my photography will only gain.

Cheers,
Ruben

 

[mfogiel]

For me, the most important element in photography is to see. Shooting in B&W enables me more easily to show the things how I see them, rather than how they are seen by most people.

 

[bmattock]

Thanks, that's a nice photo.

 

[gavinlg]

I like color because (I think) I'm relatively good with it. I have extremely accurate color perception and feel, and whenever I load a roll of BW in the camera I always kick myself at least a few times during the roll for not being able to exploit something I see with nicely blending or complementing colors.

That said, I LOVE those moments when you scan a roll of neopan 1600 and the tones/grain/contrast is just to die for. Love it when you think to yourself "gee that scene didn't look so cool when I saw it, the BW film really turned it into something beautiful."

 

[Nando]

PS. Hey Nando, I moving ( temporarily) closer to Soo. I'll be working in Windsor for awhile. On step at a time. 😉

Windsor is only 5 hours away (with mild speeding). Agawa Bob and the G-Man said that they will make me like the great outdoors by the time you move up here but I'm skeptical.... The black flies are already here. I may be visiting Dearborn in August.

 

[Tom A]

Fernando, I agree with your sceptisism about the great outdoors. Highly over-rated. Things bite you, things crawl on you, the ground "squeelches" when you walk on it and nothing is sign-posted.
I like my nature well organized and with plenty of cafe's around! Paris/Rome is about as nature bound as I would like to be.
Too bad about the black-flies - nasty little buggers - about 90% teeth too.
I grew up in nature - and has had no urge to go back to it since I stepped out from it!

 

[Trius]

....wimps....

 

[Haigh]

I have poor colour vision but I shoot digital colour and film b&w. I have had two iPhoto books made recently and they are colour and I love the "look". However I am not good enough to get past the distraction of colour so I go for fairly vivid colours but it is b&w where I can really tone down the technique to get something pretty "quiet". Sorry I can't express it in words.

 

[john341]

Colour makes ordinary pictures look good..b/w makes ordinary pictures look bad...or is it my age? I love b/w , colour is probably superfluous to our needs...