urban ku # 185 ~ accidents do happen
Friday, May 9, 2008 at 11:38AM 
Specialty store of the year - Milford, PA • click to embiggenI'm back home and my brain is pretty much out of the press check from hell fog it was in for the past few days.
And, because of that fog, I re-read and re-read the article that I mentioned in the previous post. At first I thought that maybe I had missed or misunderstood something - surely someone wasn't seriously suggested that, in essence, you judge a color photograph's success / goodness / quality by converting it to BW and then judging it. But, no matter how many times I read the thing, that does indeed seem to be the point.
The idea that you judge what something is by turning it into something that it is not is, as I stated previously, rather daft. In fact, IMO, it is quite daft. The only reason that I can think of that someone would suggest this idea is that they simply do not understand the radical differences between the skills necessary to make successful color and/or BW pictures.
Each genre has its own distinct visual vernacular, its own way of seeing - both in the making and in the viewing. On a purely visual level (form), ignoring content, most successful BW pictures rely heavily on the expert use of tonal values and contrast. Color pictures, on the other hand, rely heavily on the expert use of ... well ... you guessed it - color.
Make no mistake, these are two very different skill sets. If you are to be successful in either genre, you need to understand what is required by each approach and work accordingly. This concept of knowing the difference has become more than a bit muddled in the age of digital capture wherein all pictures start out as color images. In order to edit and print in BW, one must convert the color values to bw values after the act of picturing.
This way of working has led many, if not most, picture makers to consider BW as an effect not as the unique way of seeing that it actually is - you need only witness the never ending stream of this comment found on so many photo forum sites - "I think this photo works better as a BW picture than it does as color picture.", or its inverse, "Do you think this photo works better as a BW picture than it does as a color picture?"
Simply stated, this comment(s) displays a complete ignorance of the BW genre, or, for that matter, one could argue, a rather significant misunderstanding of the how and the why of making a truly good body of work (color or BW) - rather than the occasional and "accidental" making of a single good picture (color or BW).
Again, simply stated, if you want to consistently make good BW or color pictures you must have, at the very least, a basic understanding of the visual vernacular of the genre of your choice. Otherwise, you are little more than an "accidental' photographer.
Any thoughts on this?
gravitas et nugalis
FYI, Milford PA is a small village (pop. 1100) in the extreme NE corner of PA. It claims to be the home of the conservationist movement (courtesy of Gifford Pinchot) and actually is the resting place of the blood-soaked (still visible) American flag that was draped on President Abraham Lincoln's booth at Ford's Theatre the night he was shot.
If neither of those inducements are enough to get you to visit the place, you might also consider the fact that, in September 2007, Frommer's Budget Travel named Milford, Pennsylvania, second on its list of "Ten Coolest Small Towns in America".
Truth be told, I knew none of this until yesterday when I "accidentally" - not by mistake - passed through Milford on my way home from the press check from hell.
Reader Comments (7)
I'm more worried by the fact that Johnson thinks the green colour is automatically ugly. That betrays a deeper prejudice than his (well known and long standing) preference for B+W. In the example he shows it's interesting how the photo changes from being about the water to being about the boats. It's hardly an insignificant change of emphasis, whatever your standards of beauty.
If you *like* the colours, Sonia Thomsen's work is well worth a look (www.soniathomsen.com).
I am reluctant to reveal a female secret to your male readers, but here goes:
Most women would never get married if they didn't judge what something is (the fiance) by a belief that they could turn it into something it is not.
In post 516 you mentioned photographing in the Amish Country — were you able to do that?
I wholeheartedly agree with you, and you said it perfectly. Judging something's merit by turning in into something it isn't in the first place. Hogwash. Wanted to mention how much I love the color and comp in this post by the way - awesome photo.
Ansel Adams' color work was utterly unremarkable. As long as he did the conversion to black and white in his head before exposure, he did okay. If you look at the "Ansel Adams in Color" book, there are several pictures of which he also made B&W negatives. The B&W's are infinitely superior.
Another thought poker...
I want to (and to some extent do) agree with you both. I certainly support your objection to the "this is better in B&W" comments, although I do struggle with the same issues myself. The point is always: am I trying to show form and tone, or colour relationships.
I think Mike has a point, certainly for "traditional" subjects about checking a colour image in B&W. It goes to form and relationship of content.
I do strongly appreciate te point you make regarding a body of work in either and such an approach does force one to think in specific ways when doing so.
I really don't care... It is the look of the final photo that counts. If it is colour, B&W, or digitally converted to B&W from color, or whatever... does it really matter? It's all about the final photo and how it works. No doubt that sometimes colour is distracting to the message being communicated, sometimes not.
As a colour photographer my best B&W images are often the result of luck, because I don't see well in B&W. I still think they are great photographs, even though they were not previsualized as B&W prints. Then again, I am beginning to learn to see in B&W because I've struggled in Photoshop to convert many images from colour to B&W. I am beginning to see what works and what doesn't.