Photography Thailand Forum

[ThailandJohn]

I just wanted to find out why some people choose color and others choose black & white.

At one of the seminars I attended, one of the speakers explained why a picture on the cover of a national magazine was in B & W.

It was a picture of a person laying on the ground with his face covered in blood.
The photographer wanted to show the agony on his face and if the picture was in color, he felt there would be more focus on the blood.

For this discussion, what are some other reasons?

[stet]

before digital, I would choose bw because it was cheaper.   

Now, though, I find myself shooting bw more instead of color film or digital because I basically can't get color right. I even sometimes think to myself a really simple and obvious quote from a big-league photog at my old paper. It sounds dumb to say/write, but it makes sense if you look at great photos or survey a scene before shooting or loading film:

"Black and white is all about the light; color is about the color."

If you're talking about choosing bw or color before you shoot, I choose bw more often becuase I think it generally suits most street photography, and my style. Sometimes street shooting in color will lead to distracting elements, even if it's an integral part of the image. It's sorta similar to the reason given in your example. I remember reading somewhere that when people look at a photo, their eyes unconsciouly are first drawn to red. Sometimes I'll notice that something lurking in the background of my photo is red, and it jumps out at me. But if a scene/shot has some great, vibrant colors, or an overly dominant color, I'll probably want color if I can. I can't get my head around choosing bw or color after a shot is taken, but I'm trying to learn.

[Marc Schultz]

I say all photography is about light, color or B&W and without it there is no photo. In absence of good light though color can sometimes look good if you have good color contrast and the same for B&W if you have a good range of textures and shades of gray.

I can post examples of color photos that have bad light and fail miserably as color photos, but look good as B&W and vice versa as well.

If we are talking purely about light, then I have to say both color and B&W both look great with nice high contrast lighting. Sometimes though when you don't have good light, one or the other might still work if the above applies.

[stet]

Of course, photography wouldn't exist without light, but I took the main point of the quote to mean that the key elements when setting up your shot is light for bw, and your color(s) for color. It works as a good but rough rule of thumb stuffed in a simple sentence, easy to carry around and useful for many situations.  :)

FWIW, I think the first image I posted here was a color shot where sunbeams were a key element.

[Marc Schultz]

Understood, but again Rick, and I am sorry to say, I believe good color photographs require good light just as much as B&W does to create an interesting photograph. In fact, when I first started taking pictures I shot mainly color and knew very little about B&W. At that time I used to believe if the light was not so good I could at least pull an interesting B&W shot out of it. Today I still believe that applies in some situations.

For color photography though light is really needed more often than with B&W to make the colors vibrant or they can apear looking very dark and flat. See the attached photo which gives an example of what I am referring to of a dull, flat color photograph shot in bad lighting, although it has good contrast and still works well as a photograph when converted to B&W. Hope this helps to clarify a bit more.

[David Procter]

A good discussion. Some photographers say when they are shooting in black and white they try and see in black and white and its a different process. Its also true that black and white can save a composition when light is lacking and marc's example is a perfect example - the contrast and in that case the geometry is beatifully enhanced.  Then again Black and white can be used superficially without any apparent reason other than its 'arty'!
The pics i am posting are two of my favourite street shots (same scene moments apart). Shes a 'working girl' in china town. I chose to convert the one to bw becuase i didnt want the colours distracting from the expression - bit i really liked the colours so i kept them in the other one. What do you think??

[anna]

Interesting viewpoints.  David, I like the converted BW better.  My eyes focus on the girl first, stay there a bit before moving on the rest of the picture.  For the color one, my eyes are directed to the girl only VERY briefly and immediately moved to the other strong colors in the image.  I asked people here in the household (adults and kids with no photo skill) and they say the color one is distracting.   
From the photos I've taken, there are some that I convert to the B&W because sometimes, the bad lighting in color could be "saved" once converted.  Attached is a shot with a very bad lighting.  I have not done any Photoshop on it.  The second one is the converted BW.  Lighting is still bad but not as bad as the color one. 

[anna]

The photos I posted, pixels are so big.  Before posting, I reduced the size and made the image to be 250KB.  How come once posted, it is down to 63.81 KB, thus, making the image worse than it was already. Please help.

[Marc Schultz]

I agree, something is not right about the image quality of the posted image. Seems the system downsized and reduced the quality. Not sure why though if the image you posted was under 250K. Actually the limit is 350K as I had increased it a while ago.

E-mail the original image you posted and I will take a look at it to see if I can figure out why it possibly got downsized.

[Marc Schultz]

Anna, I am attaching the image here you sent to me. It seems to be posting OK. I did nothing but post the image you sent me as is. It appears though the image you sent me and the one you psoted is quite different in terms of size.

[anna]

Thanks, Marc, I will look into it further.  I knew I had to make it smaller because the original was in 4 digit size, and in so doing, lost the pixels.  Somewhere I missed something.

[David Salmanowitz]

Briefly, I agree with Mark that lighting is what make a photograph come alive and gives it that extra punch--turning a dull photo into a knockout photo, whether color or b/w. I also agree with Anna as to liking the b/w photo of the Chinatown shot better. She said it perfectly when she said in the color shot she focused on the girl only briefly, as the other colors led her away. This is also subjective, as someone else could give the reasons they liked the color shot better. The blue/green in the phone booth just grabbed my attention right away.

[nancyzarny]

Anna's photo works in B&W because the color is unified and therefore the two distinct sections of the photo do not fight each other. Rather, the direction of the backlighting makes sense and adds dramma to the scene. In the color photo, the tension between the pale blue background Vs. orange foreground  and the blurrieness Vs. sharpness is too much for the eye to comfortably take in when it is almost equally divided.

[stet]

to go back to the original question, David hit it on the head when he said that some people think in black and white (or is it hit *me* on the head? ). I'm not overtly trying to be a traditionalist, but very rarely do I shoot color and convert, but I try to make it work with whatever film I have in. When shooting digital, I don't like to 'think' bw and then look at the color shot on the viewing panel; it's distracting. (Because of this, an Espon RD-1, or its next version, could be in my future.)

What I meant by the quote was that when I load a film, whether it's color or bw determines how I think. (this is primarily for street shooting, too; load the film, put on the wrist strap, and go about shooting whatever I come upon, as opposed to having an organized shoot where I can predetermine choices based on setting, clothing, etc.) If it's bw, I look for angles that will give me the best light and complementary (and complimetary!) shadows. If it's color, I'm primarily concerned with finding large swaths of one color to fill the frame (my style, or one that I'm attracted to).

This approach at least helps me. I have other modes of thinking too. I normally shoot with a rangefinder and a fixed 35mm lens, and I tend to see the world in 35mm and bw. If I take out the dSLR, I'm thinking differently because I can't easily see what's out of the viewfinder.  Or if I'm shooting 6x6 as opposed to rectangles.