Black and white vs Colour? Which subjects suit one better than the other?

Ed Sutton said:
No. I still maintain that colour tells you more.

I think you get your messages across well enough using colour from what I have seen of your blog. I don't understand why you think black and white might be better at it.
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Fair enough, on your first point.

On your second, thanks; but this isn't about my work, really. Maybe we could look at another photographer's work as an example?

Fay Godwin. She did most of her well-known and very influential work in black-and-white; would it have worked as well in colour?
 
jerry12953 said:
Fay Godwin. She did most of her well-known and very influential work in black-and-white; would it have worked as well in colour?
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That's the problem. We'll never know.

There must be a reason that 'serious' photography stopped having to be black and white, when colour ceased being widely thought of as only fit for commercial or holiday photography.

Perhaps it would be more useful to compare the work of someone who started out in black and white and switched to colour? I would suggest Martin Parr, but he might be a bit of an extreme example! Not only did he switch to colour but his compositional style altered too. In documentary photography perhaps Chris Steele-Perkins might serve as an example?

https://static.guim.co.uk/sys-image...09161396591/wolverhampton-youth-club--003.jpg

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01810/csp1_1810042b.jpg
 
jerry12953 said:
Fay Godwin. She did most of her well-known and very influential work in black-and-white; would it have worked as well in colour?
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It is not a case of "would it have worked as well in colour?" as Fay Godwin's pictures would have told a different story if they were in colour. Pictures are not about 'does it work' they are about the communication. Would Fay Godwin's pictures have communicated the same in colour - no, they wouldn't. Would they communicate something - yes, of course.
 
Ed Sutton said:
That's the problem. We'll never know.

There must be a reason that 'serious' photography stopped having to be black and white, when colour ceased being widely thought of as only fit for commercial or holiday photography.

Perhaps it would be more useful to compare the work of someone who started out in black and white and switched to colour? I would suggest Martin Parr, but he might be a bit of an extreme example! Not only did he switch to colour but his compositional style altered too. In documentary photography perhaps Chris Steele-Perkins might serve as an example?

https://static.guim.co.uk/sys-image...09161396591/wolverhampton-youth-club--003.jpg

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01810/csp1_1810042b.jpg
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I'll have a look at those later. thanks for the suggestion.

Some of Fay Godwin's later work was in colour but it was also shot in a different location, Bradford rather than rural areas (IIRC).

I'm trying to work and think at the same time......not easy.....;)
 
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jerry12953 said:
I wonder what the difference would have been? I'm not trying to be clever but this is pretty close to the crux of the matter for me.
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What would the difference be if James Patterson wrote in the style of Jane Austen? There would be no page turning, edge of the seat stuff. Would it work - no, because it would now be a romance not a thriller. Would it be a good romance - I doubt it but who knows?
 
Ed Sutton said:
There must be a reason that 'serious' photography stopped having to be black and white, when colour ceased being widely thought of as only fit for commercial or holiday photography.
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William Eggleston

Ed Sutton said:
Perhaps it would be more useful to compare the work of someone who started out in black and white and switched to colour?
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William Eggleston

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/dec/03/william-eggleston-photography-before-colour

:)
 
Ed Sutton said:
That's the problem. We'll never know.

There must be a reason that 'serious' photography stopped having to be black and white, when colour ceased being widely thought of as only fit for commercial or holiday photography.
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I'm not sure how well this fits in with the dates, but I suspect Photoshop had an influence. Before scanning and photoshop, and subsequently digital cameras, colour was very restricting. You could do a certain amount "in camera" with filters, but even burning and dodging was tricky (albeit impossible in my case) without getting strange colour changes.

Although, I printed colour for my professional work, and took some personal (wildlife and some landscape) colour transparency stuff, for the bulk of my personal photography I was never satisfied with the lack of control I had with colour. Colour prints just never felt like they were "mine".

Photoshop changed that, and you now have more control in colour that you used to have with b/w silver prints, which I think opened up colour to a lot more "serious" photographers. I'm not suggesting this is the whole answer, but I suspect it contributed.
 
myotis said:
I'm not sure how well this fits in with the dates, but I suspect Photoshop had an influence. Before scanning and photoshop, and subsequently digital cameras, colour was very restricting. You could do a certain amount "in camera" with filters, but even burning and dodging was tricky (albeit impossible in my case) without getting strange colour changes.

Although, I printed colour for my professional work, and took some personal (wildlife and some landscape) colour transparency stuff, for the bulk of my personal photography I was never satisfied with the lack of control I had with colour. Colour prints just never felt like they were "mine".

Photoshop changed that, and you now have more control in colour that you used to have with b/w silver prints, which I think opened up colour to a lot more "serious" photographers. I'm not suggesting this is the whole answer, but I suspect it contributed.
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That's interesting. My first experience of printing was from colour transparency (basically because I had a good friend who worked for Ilford and taught me to use CIBAchrome) then colour neg and finally mono. I liked the ability to vary contrast in mono with multigrade papers or soucing different grades and types of papers, but found it mostly unrewarding because tone was all you had to convey information compared to colour. I was very happy to dodge & burn colour (and apply filters under the enlarger lens, for that matter) to get what I wanted.

I very much like what I can do in software now - so much easier - but still *mostly* treat it like a digital darkroom.

It seems to me that we sometimes want to justify use of one form or another, to make it the 'right' form.
 
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myotis said:
I'm not sure how well this fits in with the dates, but I suspect Photoshop had an influence. Before scanning and photoshop, and subsequently digital cameras, colour was very restricting.
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I don't think digital has anything to do with it. Eggleston, Shore, Meyerowitz, Parr et al all moved to working in colour long before Photoshop arrived
 
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ancient_mariner said:
That's interesting. My first experience of printing was from colour transparency (basically because I had a good friend who worked for Ilford and taught me to use CIBAchrome) then colour neg and finally mono. I liked the ability to vary contrast in mono with multigrade papers or soucing different grades and types of papers, but found it mostly unrewarding because tone was all you had to convey information compared to colour. I was very happy to dodge & burn colour (and apply filters under the enlarger lens, for that matter) to get what I wanted.

I very much like what I can do in software now - so much easier - but still *mostly* treat it like a digital darkroom.

It seems to me that we sometimes want to justify use of one form or another, to make it the 'right' form.
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Ah, maybe that was my problem - a lack of skill with colour printing. But it may be deeper than that, as I still generally find b/w images more satisfying to look at and produce, even though I now also enjoy colour. I'm very much enjoying Bruce Percy's latest book, for example. And I was, and possibly still am, probably influenced by the fact that all the photographers I looked up to, worked in B/W, and I think I still tend to see in B/W except for when I consider the colour is what is making the picture.

So, now a days I mix and match, colour and B/W and am really enjoying the flexibility of a digital darkroom.
 
Ed Sutton said:
I don't think digital has anything to do with it. Eggleston, Shore, Meyerowitz, Parr et al all moved to working in colour long before Photoshop arrived
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There have certainly been individuals working in colour long before photoshop, but I was suggesting that the broader acceptance of colour was related to the control that Photoshop gave, not that no one was doing serious colour photography before Photoshop.

When I left photography in the 1980s, B/W felt very dominant, and colour rather unusual. Meyerowitz is the name that stands out from that time as someone I associate with using colour.
 
myotis said:
There have certainly been individuals working in colour long before photoshop, but I was suggesting that the broader acceptance of colour was related to the control that Photoshop gave, not that no one was doing serious colour photography before Photoshop.

When I left photography in the 1980s, B/W felt very dominant, and colour rather unusual. Meyerowitz is the name that stands out from that time as someone I associate with using colour.
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I would agree that for hobbyists colour has really come to prominence with the advent of digital technology. However, I stopped using black and white in 1983 and shot mostly transparency because it suited my practical needs (to accompany magazine articles I was writing and talks I was doing). I only got back into photography for other purposes post-digital and can no longer see the point in black and white - although I have tried, both digitally and with film.
 
Ed Sutton said:
I don't think digital has anything to do with it.Eggleston, Shore, Meyerowitz, Parr et al were all moved to working in colour long before Photoshop arrived
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And Fay Godwin, apparently, did very little of her own printing, even in B&W, although she was very hands-on with her printers.......(if you know what I mean) .


myotis said:
I'm not suggesting this is the whole answer, but I suspect it contributed.
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Yes, I'm sure it did.

There are no easy answers ; so many factors and individual choices to consider.
 
Ed Sutton said:
I would agree that for hobbyists colour has really come to prominence with the advent of digital technology. However, I stopped using black and white in 1983 and shot mostly transparency because it suited my practical needs (to accompany magazine articles I was writing and talks I was doing). I only got back into photography for other purposes post-digital and can no longer see the point in black and white - although I have tried, both digitally and with film.
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I'm not sure. From what I have already said, I felt that the rise in colour seemed to parallel the rise in the use of photoshop, and based on discussions from the 1980s, as to why black and white was still dominant in personal photography, even though most of us were now using colour professionally, the lack of control with colour, was at the top of the list. Hence my suggestion.

But this is a small sample, and I have no deep knowledge of photographic history, particularly during this crucial period when the change really occurred, and I have been working in a different profession.
 
myotis said:
I'm not sure. From what I have already said, I felt that the rise in colour seemed to parallel the rise in the use of photoshop, and based on discussions from the 1980s, as to why black and white was still dominant in personal photography, even though most of us were now using colour professionally, the lack of control with colour, was at the top of the list. Hence my suggestion.

But this is a small sample, and I have no deep knowledge of photographic history, particularly during this crucial period when the change really occurred, and I have been working in a different profession.
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It depends what you mean by 'personal photography'. Family snaps moved to colour as soon as it became cheap. Probably before the 1980s.

I have little knowledge of what hobbyist photographers have been doing since the 1980s.I do remember articles about colour printing back then in Amateur Photographer and Practical Photography. But they held as much interest for me as the endless lens reviews with their graphs and charts! Thankfully I soon learned there was more to photography than what those magazines were about and haven't bought any of that sort of publication since. :D
 
Ed Sutton said:
It depends what you mean by 'personal photography'. Family snaps moved to colour as soon as it became cheap. Probably before the 1980s.
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I mean in this context, of using photography as means of self expression, where the fine nuances of the final print are important to the photographer, this was how I interpreted the comment about "serious" photography in the post I replied to.
 
Express your ideas, then ask for feedback.
Rink
 
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lemo said:
Godwin did colour too:
http://www.uklandscape.net/interviews/int godwinF.html
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Indeed she did (as I mentioned in post no. 85!), but she was arguably past her prime by then. In 1986, as she started working in colour in Bradford, she said "It never particularly interested me to photograph landscape in colour, but the urban landscape really excited me." I can't help thinking there was a strong contrary streak in her make up. Rural landscapes in B&W, then urban landscapes in colour, when many other photographers of the time would have been doing just the opposite?

Musicman said:
William Eggleston
William Eggleston

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/dec/03/william-eggleston-photography-before-colour

:)
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An interesting piece by Sean Hagan, although one has to agree first of all that William Eggleston was a genius. As in the first paragraph

- "But here, finally, is the evidence that even the most famous colour photographer of all once saw the world around him in monochrome. It is quite a surprise."

One can't help but think that he began using B&W because that was what was available to him at the time, as it would have been to most photographers. Critics such as Hagan attribute motivations and abilities to their heros but tend to overlook the more mundane reasons why they do what they do.

Other "serious photographers" who dabbled in colour during the B&W era included Ansel Adams although he is mainly known for his B&W work. Perhaps the crowning achievement of the colour photographer in the B&W era was "The Creation" by Ernst Haas, published in 1971. I first saw it in the late 1970's and it showed what it is possible for the photographer to achieve. The big limitation in colour photography in those days was the materials that were available. One will never know if more "serious" photographers would have used colour if film and printing were of better quality.
 
jerry12953 said:
Ok, so I'll post a couple of examples. I've got a hunch that the B&W works better than the colour version and I would suggest that this is the type of subject works better in B&W. But I'm not sure why......

View attachment 107915 View attachment 107916
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Purely subjective ask 20 people - ten will like the monochrome, 10 will like the colour version.

There is no correct answer in photography - ever !

Some people will like the image, others will not.

Personally I like this image and prefer the colour version !
 
Personally, I find myself automatically thinking black & white if I'm about to take a photo and I notice that it's high in contrast.
 
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