(why) Is black and white photography still taken more seriously than colour?

[robklurfield]

It's a convention. Something easy to fall back on rather than taking a creative risk and assuming that your audience will get. A hack TV director knows that the audience will understand. I wouldn't impute much more meaning to it than this. The directors of these TV cop procedurals are probably worried that a color image spied thru the viewfinder would confuse the audience into convulsions as they try to figure whose point of view the shot represents ("gosh, is that what the cop is seeing or what the killer is seeing?"). Most of what's on TV dramas relies on habit, convention and formula.

Which is my exact point ... the photograph and black & white are like 'peaches and cream' ... 'hot dogs with mustard' etc etc!

There's a connection there that makes it obvious to joe viewer in case he hasn't realised ... 'This is a photograph!'

It's deeply ingrained in our psyche obviously.

 

[Jamie123]

What is depressing is when you show someone a photo you took that you're pretty proud of ... and they opine that it would have been really nice in colour!

Never happened to me but if it did I would probably wonder how they could know what it would've looked like in color.

 

[Vilk]

...powerful connection in our culture between photography and the black and white image... [...] deeply ingrained in our psyche obviously.

not culture, not psyche. quite simply, the primary functional subsystem of our vision is colourblind. pure biology

😛

 

[Jamie123]

not culture, not psyche. quite simply, the primary functional subsystem of our vision is colourblind. pure biology

😛

Load of BS.

 

[lacavol]

I served as a juror on a violent murder trial a couple of years ago. I seem to remember the pictures of the victim being monotone. I can't say they were BW, but I don't remember any colors. We were shown a slide of the victim from the waist up on a screen about 3X4 meters. Five shots of a 357 mag. in the upper torso.

Maybe art reflecting reality. Outdoor crime scene photos were color I remember. All were slides. I don't know if I would have bought 'digital' as evidence. You have to convince 12 jurors unanimously, while following the judge's instructions.

 

[ChrisN]

My dreams are in black and white. I'm told some people dream in colour. I blame it on a deprived childhood - we only had a B&W TV.