I have just worked my way through two pages of images for screening and was struck by the fact that all but one image were black and white.
Now I am of a generation that grew up with wet film and there was an obvious reason for the widespread reliance on black & white prints. B&W cost about a quarter of colour and could be processed by people with even rudimentary equipment/darkroom. Also colour prints hadn't reached the level of contrast and saturation seen today. None of these points apply to digital photography, yet there is still a wide reliance on B&W to create mood and impact.
Are modern photographers being lazy with their use of B&W? We live in a polychromatic world of infinite shades and view our images on colour monitors, yet a large volume of output falls back on B&W. Is B&W the agreed indicator for mood and gravitas? Does it portray something extra that colour cannot address?
What do you think?

Colour is so much harder to work in than B&W! But it is glorious. Most people are afraid of colour, and on top of that don't know how to use it. That's my opinion :)

This has been discussed ad nauseum in other Forum threads...

Would you be surprised to hear that there was, after all that discussion, no consensus on any of your questions?

I don't predict any different result this time around...

Sorry, maybe I should have done a search before posting this. I did look but didn't see an obvious forum that might deal with this issue.

I need to save this as a cut paste for the next time its discussed and just change the numbers but of the last 120 pics published 62 are in colour. Same ratio in any snap shot of 1x history.

I would put it another way: Colour should be used, if it adds extra information/value to the image. If it does not add anything, it will only detract from the story/message IMO.

A recent published example of a mood picture, where the colour is a great part of the mood IMO:


An example of a published portrait, where colour directly would detract from the strong message IMO:




Lars :-)

Hey guys - c'mon - Kenp isn't complaining, he's just asking questions.

No, Kenp. It´s exactly the oposite. Sometimes color portray to much information unecessary :-)

Again, for me is exactly the oposite :-) (IMO, ofcourse)

Kevin is right. This not a complaint but an observation of a current experience during the screening process. The question is about mood and the use of color. Hopefully it won't go beyond that and some good thoughts on the comparisons and use of BW and color photography will ensue.

Jerry and Kevin, I didn;t suggest that kenp was complaining.

I merely made an observation, a report (in the form of a question) and a prediction...

All of course offered in typical hillbilly style!

This is ignoring my point. We live in a polychromatic world. Films don't turn B&W when the mortally wounded hero dies. The cameraman has to convey the mood without falling back on artificial devices as a kind of mood indicator.

I think it is primarily a matter of taste (the photographer's). If he/she likes either the aesthetics or the way the message is conveyed in BW, then there you go. The only person able to decide that is the photographer's personal view. All the rest of us can have an opinion as to whether a particular photo might be better in color or BW, but...who cares, really?
To me, there is no right or wrong, only taste. Lars, Rui and Ursula already have very different opinions as to what is harder, or when to use it :)

Discussion is always good. Always. So what if something was already discussed ad nauseam?. New blood may enrich the discussion, time may enrich the discussion....If somebody is not happy with a given discussion, they can stay out, don't tell others what to do, please. Or, if too nauseated, they can vomit, they will feel better afterward ;)

d

Gotta love a good hillbilly!

interesting, but why do you assume that the photog is actually trying to create a "mood indicator" by the action, perhaps that photog just likes b/w? And by the way my previous post was not meant as a challenge as some have indicated just a statement of fact.

I work mostly in b/w, I feel more comfortable that way, I find the transition of tone more pleasing than obvious colour indicators, I find it makes me investigate an image on a deeper level of understanding, perhaps a silly thing to say but it is the way that I feel.

mal

I've started experimenting with colour again, and I have to agree. With minimal processing there seems to be a lot more technique involved. Black and white could be seen as a shortcut to imagination and expression I suppose. But then the popular photos are all colour, I suppose we like to think this allows us to differ from the herd in that true wannabe artist style. :)


With film though you have to use filters. Photoshop takes all that away with the channel mixer function so I can see why you say that Rui. If you have a look at artlimited.net 50% of the photos have nothing going for them other than their flawless black and white tones (IMO). I guess photoshop has simplified the process of taking a good black and white photo.

One can't but notice that painters (who came from the monochrome world of cave painters), grasped colour with both hands and rarely does one see a monochrome painting.

He he - and I could say exactly the same about colours!

Lars :-)

I have to agree with what Ursula said. Working with B/W is much easier, I've noticed too that many things can be forgiven in b/w while not in colour.

Personally I don't think of colour as a distraction, I just simply believe some photos are better of in B/W, for mood reasons or any other, while other are better in colour.

In my opinion painting and photography are black and white practices with colour being simply another tool. Forms and lines are effectively what make each image.

Guys, I was being a bit silly when I said that colour is harder than b&w. That really depends on the person. I do think though that many, many people are afraid of colour, not in the sense of using colour for everyday snaps, but to use it well, to use it to actually make the image. But again, that is a choice - I think in colour, so the reality for me is that B&W is a lot harder, and also a lot harder to understand. I think that people who think in B&W, like Mal, have the opposite experience. It's the way it is, and it's beautiful that we have that variety. Long live colour!

So asking a question is whining?

Why do so many resort to the same old tool and what does this particular tool provide that colour doesn't?

Great words, Christian ...

In this digital era, people usualy thinks everything that are crap and have flaws in color, convert it to BW, put some vigneting, contrast ... shadows and voilá, a "mood" photo ready :-)

This is the "easy way" associated to BW. Produce a good BW is not easy at all. I´m not defend here film, but for me film in the right conditions makes the process easy.

By the way, i use many times color, Velvia, Provia, Portra and many of you think i´m against use of color. But never in history BW is a easy discipline.

I agree sometime ago, in film era, colour is not easy, very dificult to calibrate it, give right tones, WB etc. Now with all that digital toys is for kids.

And then, cames the artists, and we talk about a diferent discipline. There are photographs that works with colour, uses the colour for transmit his feelings, but that is diferent of take a picture, saturate it, use a HDR plug-in, etc.

Is like my friend Chistian Hansen say :


:-)

You have said it yourself. I grew to love B&W and therefore see possibe images in mono. I cherish the fact that one can portray our colourful life in a variation of greys, and the challenge lies in satisfying those that do not necessarily see things in the same monochromatic way that I do.
I like mono because I believe that one can extract the required essence, as the limitation of colours forces one to concentrate and hone in on that.
Had I practiced colour before, maybe I would have thought differently.
However, when I view images, I do not notice the difference.
What you have pointed out is exactly why I like this site. I am sure most other discerning sites are the same, but I do like the fact that there are no separation of whether the image are in mono or colour. And frankly, I have not really noticed a discrimination from one group towards the other. My only previous web based experience was quite different.

Yes, Alex, sometimes we havn´t the right conditions for BW, and so we need use filters in order the monochrome have right tonal gama and contrast. But for that is necessary in first place to study what we see ... colors, light, shadows, etc. and then decide if we must use filter or not, or kind of filter.


Yes, is true. But IMO PS and digital cameras can produce a good black and white photo, not a superb black and white photo, until now. Let´s wait for future to see if i stop use film :-)

Why have no great painters chosen to work in B&W then?

To answer what you said in the original post ... overall we get about the same in B&W and in colour. I don't have the numbers for it, but a while back I was trying to keep track of it, and it turned out to be quite similar, both in the number of images that came in to screening, and in the number of published images in B&W and in colour.

Some days we get more of one or the other, so the screening queue can be quite different from day to day.

I thought for a while that the more accomplished or experienced photographers at 1X were working mostly in B&W. From looking at the portfolios of these more accomplished photographers, this doesn't seem to be true at all. What does seem to be true is that few work successfully in both B&W and colour. Sometimes, but most seem to have a strong preference for one or the other.

Because in that times they only have charcoal and BW are not invented yet. But you have fabulous artwork in MONOCHROME in history, since pre-historical ages... like in porcelain, frescos, etc.

BW apears with photography. Now you have many artists working in charcoal and other monochrome stuff.

I think you forget drawings - pencil, charcoal, engravings, linocut... etc...

painting is a completely different story. the variations of tones you can give the colours in a painting is rarely achieved in a photograph, even less on monitors.

:)

I was talking about colour being a tool for painting and photography where it is necesary to see in black and white in my opinion. I presume you meant what does black and white provide that colour doesn't. While I think it depends on each individual image there are many reasons.
-More emphasis on lines and forms
-Simplicity
-A surreality
-Even tones

And for me black and white is an opportunity to wander to a world full of abstract and difference. Colour is nice, but black and white is a more engaging experience.

Great words. I think it is a "learn to love" experience.

In that case please forgive me. I have only been here a couple of weeks and I should have known better.

I knew someone would say that because it has some truth and applies to painters before B&W photography but Picasso was arguably the greatest artist of the last century and he was born and lived through the B&W and colour photography period but apart from drawings with charcoal etc, he automatically worked in colour.

He chose to work in MONOCHROME generally because he wanted to explore other means of expression not because he felt colour 'detracted' from the image.

hmm, for me b&w has always been the much more inspiring and exciting variant. I rarely get excited by colour images as deeply as I do with b&w or monochrome, and even when I was a kid it was like this...

a colour image for me needs to have a really special "need" to be in colour...

well .. :)

Hi Ken, this topic been discussed many times but still an interesting talking point I reckon.

I'm predominantly a colour person purely because I do landscapes and I feel that I can represent a particular scene more accurately and more aesthetically pleasing in the colours Mother Nature bestowed us but increasingly I'm getting excited about mono images. I've been experimenting mostly with coastal shots in mono and finding that I can produce a far more appealing image in mono as opposed to the colour variant. I can't really explain it but there seems more depth, drama and impact.

I've just spent a pleasant hour or so down the harbour purely photographing in mono and really excited about the results, the scene dictated it but I wouldn't try and photograph a vibrant Autumn woodland scene in mono as I feel it wouldn't represent what I want to get across.

I'm not capable of any high minded opinion of B&W, I just sense when it would be better suited than colour.

JP

I took colour only photos for 6 months until someone pointed out that black and white existed. This digital age creates a lot of google intelligence and naivety. :)
You've opened my eyes to the "special need" though. ;)

Obviously yes. As far as I am concerned I admit that I am a bit "afraid of color". More pricesely I am never satisfied with most of my color pics in a way that I very often find the colors disappointing compared to that of reality. Most of my color shot end up overprocessed (and I guess that is one of the reason I never got one published and most were instant rejects). On the other hand I "think" (or see) more and more in B/W, contrast, tones gradient, light, shadow etc... and - very important - I am always more and less aware of motifs and material that may or not be relevant for b/w (e.g. "I hate grass" ... ) so that the picture is already b/w before firing the camera most of the time.

:))

funny enough, I can*t even say that I see the image before - in colour or in b&w - for me it*s always the mood, some special light, that triggers me. and I guess that is what excites me in b&w - the emphasis on the light, which for me gets often drowned by colour in colour photographs. I love the focus on light and shadow and the more "silent" - or maybe some would also say "slow" quality in the b&w images. for me colour excitement fades very soon, even in nature...

Colors exist in real, B/W exist only in photog...
(OK, that is not fair for color photographers who do great job...)

A direct color photog of the real is just a duplication, not art.

If you want to photograph real life with art :

"Life is like a good black and white photograph, there's black, there's white, and lots of shades in between."

Karl Heiner

:-)

I think that this is often overlooked. I remember when I lived in Canada - mono went out the window, and I only shot Kodachrome. For to me the forest simply did not work in B&W. I loved it. Yet, on my return, I resorted back to mono, for my work allowed for that.
So much depends on the type of work that you do.
Nothing should be so cemented in life. To be very rigid about one's ways is good to some extent, however to pronounce it as the holy grail seems to be steeped in ignorance, and actually a lack of the appreciation of how easily things can change.
The recent Street postings have (in my opinion) done a fair amount of damage of what street is, and how it should be perceived. I was more relaxed about Street before I was told what I should think. So in all honesty, all this talk about categories is so futile, and actually a waste of time in my opinion.
Why not simply take a shot, decide on a category that seems closest, submit it, and let us all enjoy it. I personally never look at the category in which a picture is submitted, nor will I discriminate should it seem 'wrongly' placed. Why should I ? Landscapes, buildings, people, clever edits, small animals, and something in between. Colour, mono - who cares.
As long as the image works, and caused someone else to be stirred by it. Job done.
However, forced differentiation and intense suggestion about what and where as far as the accepttibility of what you submit is soon going to drive me a bit dilly. It frankly bores me.
Why don't we rather sumbit our landscapes under macro, and our people under architecture....and see who cares. Only the nerds, I bet, and so what?

OK, OK, somebody please wake me up if anybody says anything new...

i believe BW has more restrictive light conditions. Its interesting since for the last few months i have been trying to improve and take some BW images along the colored ones, and i noticed that in BW light plays more of a major role. the processing is much harder as well:) color is more natural for me but now i start to see in BW.

That is agood idea...mmmmh... from now I will submit all my photog in "Fine Art Nudes" I am sure they will be more looked at :))
Seriously Andre you are right, but I am afraid that "category" influence us a lot, more or less consiously (I am not talking only for screening on 1X here)

You will sleep for a long time, Clyde, then you be kissed by a princess and came to human form again ... :-)

depending on the princess he may wake up in b/w or not :))

You can be so funny Rui:)

category shouldn't influence at all!!! it is up to the screeners to change the category if they find it not suitable before publishing (and they do that sometimes). i believe this is in the guidelines of 1x that wrong category is not a reason for rejection . i never consider category not here and not when capturing images. i only consider the image whether it be a portrait,documentary,street or conceptual... it is true that at certain situations (example) one can produce conceptual image instead of a documentary it is up to his imagination, vision of the image and the message he wants to transmit, not the category

*ggg

btw, most people dream in b&w - anyone knowing for sure some colour dreams?

:D

This is what I try and achieve, duplication of a scene is very difficult but representation or depiction is closer to what I try to do. I don't consider my photos as art at all and I'm not an artist, more a recorder I would say.

@ all ---
I don*t understand well why we should have a "result" about what is more or less good, difficult, right..etc... we all try to do best what we love to do :)

This is not to have a result, dorothée. Sometimes we all need some big discussion in forum or 1x stay too booring :)))

sorry - seems that I spoiled it *gg (I*m good at that, enjoying the silence :))

have fun..I*ll go to bed! :)

OK, dorothée come to bed, they will wake us up when somebody writes something new...

Um... Franz Kline used b&w..

Color works when color is integral to the whole.. and all the other ingredients that make for a great pic. Compo, tones, mood, etc, same as BW. I know what Ursula is talking about when she says color is more difficult than bw. when taking a photo that is rich in color, one has to make sure the colors are harmonious (not monochrome or analogous).. otherwise, it's just a big colorful mess. That is why many photos convert to bw. It brings out the composition and mood, which had better be effective and simplifies an otherwise challenging image. I agree color can be a distraction, but when a photograph is ABOUT color, there is no way it should be BW. And when a color photograph brings together all the ingredients effectively, its incredibly satisfying, and really, really hard to do. It's easier on the eyes to see an image in BW, but it's more challenging to see in color. In some situations, converting to BW is a cop out. And by the way.. I dream in color.

Isn't Picasso's Guernica a monochrome painting?
Arguably his greatest.


I really hate the way 'whining' is used around here some times.
It comes across as an elitist put down of the 'unenlightened and uninformed'
But that is probably because I would be one of the whiners...

Probably been said before but B&W was the only option available to photography for a very long time so it developed as a B&W artform until the mid-twentieth century. Since then colour has taken a long time to be accepted as a valid photographic medium and in many ways still isn't.

From my own observation I would say colour is very well represented at 1X

I guess it takes a painter like Picasso to make a good monochrome painting. Not that I know much about painting, but I can imagine that making all the finer shades of grey work well would be hard.

The original question here referred to screening. I had a look at the most popular ever images here instead, and found the percentage of b&w to be surprisingly low.
I do think that many try covering up an average shot by converting it to b&w, not usually something that is very successful imo. It might lift the image some, but rarely much.

Then, it seems like many will more easily think "art" about b&w. But personally I don't believe much in that "convert to art" button.. Or, about as much as I believe it is more artistic to use film.. (I'm not against using film, I also grew up with it, and I've shot much more on film than on digital).
Shooting, or working, in b&w is probably a good way of learning though, as you will have to think differently. And I've found that people seem to accept their own looks in a portrait easier in b&w, maybe because it is a little surreal, or possibly because they don't think about skin tones etc.


Agree!

Agree.

I really struggle with it. I don't see in colours, I see in lines and shapes and shades, so BW suits me more. That and I like to use BW film. ;-)

Even channel mixer doesn't do the same thing as real film. Each film is different, is sensitive to colours in different ways and represents the tones differently. IMHO digital BW is the worst looking BW.

I see in lines and shapes and shades too - PLUS light, so colour suits me more! :-)

We have all our own way of doing things ..............! - thats whats makes life interesting, I guess? :-)

i use b/w film because i can develope it and print it myself at home. i'm an opportunist! :D

but even when i shoot digital i come back to b/w most times. we could search for metaphysical reasons behind this but most prob its just a matter of taste. color photographers say b/w-photographers are afraid of color, b/w photogs say color-photographers photos are graphical not strong enough so they need color to make it interesting.

as long as you dont make documentary photos for magazins or newspapers everybody is free to choose what they like.

Not really for me to say, I don't use it myself

Clyde...you were supposed to sleep quietly!! I enjoyed the discussion.... ;)

I love b/w. I color. Most of all I love excellent photographs. This is not an argument for b/w or for color but for seeing light.

If I had a fine digital camera, I'd be quite happy to shoot all my images in color and convert to b/w when I felt like it. However, I was trained to see b/w tonal values, which takes practice and isn't that easy so it helped to have made thousands of b/w negatives, from determining exposure values, through film development and printing.

So if I'm photographing a model's profile by window light I'll get into trouble if the (b/w) tonal values of the face don't separate well from the tonal values of the background. Usually this problem will not arise in color unless the color of the face and the color of the background are an exact match.

To be successful as a b/w shooter, I must always keep tonal values, gradations, tonal separation and the principles of chiaroscuro in mind when photographing any scene...macro, nature, landscapes, seascapes, street, portraiture, nudes or advertising setups.

But, wonder of wonders, keeping tonal values, gradations, tonal separation and the principles of chiaroscuro in mind constantly is of great benefit in color photography, too.

I'm in the habit of deciding ahead of time if a scene will look better in b/w or in color--one reason why I often had one 35mm body loaded with color and another with b/w--and that is still not a difficult decision most of the time. However, as I said above (fine points for using b/w film aside), a fine digital camera removes the problem of choosing ahead of time. Photoshop offers wonderful tools for b/w conversion. Yes, I still shoot film, but other than reluctance to give up my view camera, I'd be happy to be a totally digital color shooter, with the final outcome to be determined later.

The point is, there seem to be no great painters who choose to work mainly in monochrome 'because they generally consider colour to detract from or less able to express an image than a monochrome one'

Sure there are many examples of painters who have done work in monochrome and Picasso himself had his blue and rose periods but this was surely more to experiment and investigate other avenues rather than because 'colour lacks or takes away something'.

But some here are trying to argue that some painters work in monochrome because it is the equivalent of B&W photography which I think is an incorrect comparison.

I don't seek to denigrate B&W or to say there aren't times when a picture does look better in B&W but the preponderance of B&W is I feel unjustified and comes from an exaggerated respect for the great body of B&W photography during the past.

as long as people like to watch b/w photos its justified. no one cares what painters do, it has nothing to do with photography. most street and docuphotographer choose b/w and those categories are not considered to be art.

there is no preponderance of b/w, news photos are color, expencive art-photography is in color, wildlife and nature photos are in color.

Well newspapers were traditionally BW. And when colour came out it would or was only the front page or in Australia - the sports pages.

I think it is a mistake to directly compare painting and photography.
They are two very different mediums.

Painting is additive while photography is predominantly subtractive.

but these days newspaper want color, talked to a keystone photographer this summer about that. b/w in pj is only used by freelancer that dont need the money :D

Sometimes less is more. Without colour you can get more out of a photo, and of-course the opposite - It is the decision of the photographer.

thank you king for a detailed explanation. this thread does produce useful stuff:)

Yes - but what I am getting at is that tradition plays a big role too. BW was the only medium for a loooooong time...

I think is a problem of simplicity.

Less is more. The problem remains in the palette of colours we use, no matter if is grey and blacks or reds or browns or whatever. More pleasant images are usually restricted in colours used, as well as in fashion not all the colours could be combined or at least not all people are ready to see some combinations. So, It is obvious a restricted palette is better, greys palette is a successful combination in our images memory.

So we prefer what we are familiar with.

Several people have made this false claim. If you study the history of visual communication (I had to) you will find that early photographers, mimicked painters of the day in every way, primarily because they thought they were addressing the same market ie the well off.
The argument regarding subtractive and additive is equal nonsense, since photography is frequently both.

Many photographers started out as painters and used photographs to record/remember a scene or idea...... then got hooked on the new medium.

I did say 'predominantly' subtractive.
Most photographers who shoot in the 'real' world are while studio photographetrs generally are not.
I would say most images at 1X are done by subtraction from the environment it was taken in.

They are very different mediums as I said above.

David Hockney is using very often a camera for making his paintings! In 1978 I've seen one of his exhibition in Vienna,about 300 portraits(drawings)in b&w made after photos taken with a wide lens!Just great experience!

..and the impressionists were sort of photographers in that they set out to capture an image at speed.

As a painter (of sorts) capturing that moment is elusive especially as a landscape painter using paints it is almost impossible to fill a large canvas of a scene in the instant it appears because it is always changing. So painting anything that relies on natural light will present difficulties because of the transient nature of light.

Therefore in this respect the two mediums are totally different photography enables us to capture the instant but often is limited in recreating what the eye can actually see. And that is why B&W is often so appealing as it relies on tones rather than hues & is slightly more forgiving when rendering a scene with a broad range of tonal values.

Colour is really limited & more so in digital than in film. Hence we see a plethora of sandwiched images to expand the creative abilities of the shooter & to allow for the inclusion of detail that ordinarily would come out a muddy brown or a pure white. And by the way I am not being critical here. And in the end B&W yes has a timeless beauty that may mimic the past but it is intrinsically more able to capture mood & drama in its limited palette that colour can ever do consistently. Look at how often colour images are toned down to create a flatter palette or less bold colours to transition the viewer into the main subject.

Of course there are always exceptions to the rule but few occasions do we see highly saturated images working (often they are uncluttered scenes with few elements so as to reduce distractions to the minimum) so I would agree with Mark photography is very much a subtractive medium.

Good points Gerard. I am trying colour now... but what did I buy? Portra NC films. So called wedding films, because of their very flat colour and natural reproduction. I don't want POP! I want them to look like the old kodachrome shots of the 1930's and 40's. I pick up my first processed roll tomorrow!

That's it.

Our eyes react easily to different colours, so if you have a very huge scene with colours, our eyes will move from one vivid colour to another. So we could not center the view in the subject, story or lighting, same way we use composition, vignetting or desaturations to center viewer to the main subject or story. Less tones better balance, better reading, better colour harmony.

Greys are cool and made the trick better.

It's interesting that a limited colour pallette usually works better, I'm fond of only two or three main colour themes in my images and also I think it is important to get the colour combinations right as well. I'm partial to the red/blue combination especially in skies; greens/browns/yellows of mountains and reds/browns etc.

My clothes are all black, brown, dark grey and maybe navy blue.... I dress conservative as well.... don't like bold and bright colours. ;-)

I prefer dramatic photos. Dramatic colors require certain conditions which aren't available very often. And living in MN, colors are pretty much void 50% of the year.

Plus, I just like B&W more.