Hi, I am a photography major attending SLCC. I find this argument very interesting and I would like you to respond. I prefer black and white. i think that it is more artistic. I am drawn to the antiqueness, the contrast, and the awe. please respond . thankyou

-- Deserae Frandsen (desy8@go.com), April 19, 1999

Answers

You're right, of course. (That's why we're both here!)

Black & white by its very nature is a stylization - color is more naturalistic, but b/w is an abstraction. But interestingly, b/w allows you to cut to the essence of form and light, of shadow and dark, and sometimes allows you to reveal more "truth" about a subject than a color photograph.

I once photographed a waterfall deep in a ravine on an overcast day. With all the mist and humidity hanging in the air, there was a primeval quality to the light. I wasn't doing serious shooting; I didn't have a tripod with me - I was just out on a walk and I stumbled on this beautiful sight. So I took a couple of pictures: one with my OM SLR with a 35mm lens and Kodak Royal Gold 200, and one with my Minox and Plus-X. The resulting images were interesting: the 35mm color shot looked like nothing, a dull grayish/greenish view of rocks, spray, and leaves; but the Minox b/w shot was BEAUTIFUL, an instant classic... I've got it framed on my wall... The magic of black & white!

And then there are portraits. In this age where everybody has a zillion 4x6 color prints of themselves, lay a nice 5x7 glossy b/w print on them and they're blown away. Even if they don't like their expression, the first thing they always say, "Oh, I just love black & white!" Even without the Hurrell lighting, everybody looks like a movie star in b/w!

Sure, I shoot color too, but I have a b/w soul...

-- Michael Goldfarb (mgoldfar@mobius-inc.com), April 20, 1999.

My theory on the brain and black and white vs.color:

Imagine the man born blind. He asks a friend to explain what colors look like. The friend, unable to use examples as a reference point (because the blind man has no points of reference), is stumped. He can not explain "red" as the color of a barn, or "blue" as the color of the sky. All the friend can do is use human emotions and feelings as the "reference points. So he explains it this way: "Red" is the color of "anger" and "passion". "Green" is the color of solitude, and so on and so on.

So my theory goes like this: The brain sees a black and white print. The brain does not like "missing" information. In fact when information is missing (ie; color missing from a visual representation of the world such as in a black and white print), it is forced to "fill in the blanks". But the brain, like the blind man, has trouble seeing color as raw information and instead associates colors with emotions, feelings, and memories. So when the brain fills in the missing data in a B&W print it comes in the form of emotions, memories, and feelings and not as a "color". That seems to explain the visceral feeling, the emotional edge, one gets when looking at black and white. A color print, on the other hand, is for the brain a very simple and straight forward piece of information requiring no work or any interpetation for the "data" of the image to be processed. If the brain was a computer, which doesn't understand a color because it was born blind, see's a black and white print it seraches it's memory banks to find SOMETHING, ANYTHING, to fill in the blanks. It uses feelings and emotions.

And that is my 2 cents.......

-- Peter Thoshinsky (camerabug1@msn.com), April 24, 1999.

Hi,PRO's,I'm from Panama. You might not know about my country but we have some very good artists around. I rather think that it all depends on the taste of the man behind the camera. A rookie like me can't talk a lot of the subject but i'm trying hard to get better pictures,artistic ones, B&w of course.

FJBV.

-- francisco j. barsallo v. (jesus_a@hotmail.com), May 26, 1999.

I think this debate will probably as long as people take pictures. Both mediums have their good and bad features. I was in the Palouse country of Wash. where the rolling hills of wheat strech to the horizon. It was may and the wheat was a color of green that i can only liken to a LSD experience. The only way tocapture it was in color. However the texture of the rolling hills in afternoon sun could only be truly captured in B&W. Like I said this debate will continue; I personally prefer B&W for doing my own developing and for portraiture. For mountain landscapes I usually use color as what I see there are the wildflowers etc. So its like the questio is photography art? Here's another point to think about: B&W is a truly archival medium but color will always fade due to the chemicals involved!

-- Ronald Lamarsh (ronald.lamarsh@med.ge.com), June 10, 1999.