the color of street photography - albeit 120 floors up
Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at 09:02AM 
Holding on for life and/or love • click to embiggenIt must be obvious to most (from my last few entries) that I spent a little time in NYC this past weekend. The wife had to see a client in Hoboken, NJ on Friday so we packed up, grabbed the little guy (he loves to visit his girlfriend, Sophie, in Brooklyn) and headed out for a stay in the East Village with my best friend.
The visit had a kind of whirlwind character to it and I didn't really picture all that much but for some reason, during my last few trips to NYC, I have started to become interested in picturing "the streets", AKA, street photography. It's a somewhat sub-conscious thing in as much as I just seem to be seeing things to which I haven't paid much attention in the past.
What's interesting about the whole thing is the fact that, when I was finished processing a few of the pictures in color, they just didn't look "right". They seemed to be screaming, "BW. BW! BW!!!!"
At first, my thought was that I was just having a Pavlovian all street photography must be BW response. Nevertheless, I converted this picture to BW and, lo and behold, it just looked "right". Or, so it seems to me.
I'd like to hear your thoughts.
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comment: Jim Jirka wrote: ".... As for the b&W conversion, does this fall under "the color image is crap, so I will make a masterpiece with it in B&W". I believe you once said that B&W is a thought process, a mode of picturing with B&W in mind during the creation process, not as an after treatment to save a color image gone bad."
my response: no, I wasn't trying "to save a color image gone bad". I like the color picture. I like the BW picture as well. That said, I seem to "connect" better with the BW but I don't know if this is because I have been conditioned to seeing street photography as BW pictures or because there is a quality to the BW picture that helps me to "read" it differently / better.
Reader Comments (7)
Well, you know I like the color version. As for the b&W conversion, does this fall under "the color image is crap, so I will make a masterpiece with it in B&W". I believe you once said that B&W is a thought process, a mode of picturing with B&W in mind during the creation process, not as an after treatment to save a color image gone bad.
Maybe it's just a "web" thing, but the colour picture doesn't seem to have the tonal range of the black and white. Most of the shadows are blocked up - the child's sweatshirt, the young woman's face... Maybe it's the greater "openness" of the B&W that's responsible for its greater appeal.
The outside blue seems to draw my eye away from the more monochromatic inside in a way that the light outside in the black and white version doesn't.
I am not so sure for the BW one being better for me (i would stress upon the relativistic point of view). For several reasons i agree with stephen.
However the colorful one gives me a lot more informations either about the view either about the place. Information is nice to have.
My young daughter (13) did not even consider the BW one. She grew up with pokemons and other heavy colored Japanese cartoons, a BW picture is a fault from her point of view.
Street photography is about the look from the corner of your eye at a scene unfolding that has subtle evidences of the human condition. Conversely, colour in a picture too often screams me, me, me! Those two are hard to console.
Those of us who grew up in the mid late 20th century remember b/w as the primary reportage photography and possible still think as such. Bourke-White, Weegee, Winogrand, Bresson, Abbott, Capa, Smith, Evans, et al had brought us images in b/w. Even TV was b/w. We were conditioned to feel b/w as the real deal. Color, back then, was for brownie cameras and barbecues.
I'd like to see the girl's knees in your shot — the mating rituals of the higher primates are fascinating.
Well I like the world outside in color and the world inside in BW. Guess we can't have it both ways though.