I am often asked why I convert my images to black and white instead of keeping them in color. The question is usually phrased like this: "Why black and white?"... followed by a strange look in their eye. * Sigh * For the longest time, my reaction was one of wonder. I couldn't conceive of photography in any other way. But this is actually a very good question, and one that has taken a lot of consideration on my part to answer properly. I have had to think long and hard about what the real reasons to make images in black and white are. Digital images are shot in color after all, so am I converting to black and white simply to have something different? Is it something technical, a conversion to black and white simply because I can do it in software? The more I thought about it, the more I realized there is far more to this question, and to its answer, than I first realized. The simplest answer, but not a very good one, is that I was trained at a time when color photography was tedious, expensive and best done through automation. The craft of photography, the part where you got down and dirty with chemistry in a darkroom, was most easily accomplished through black and white processes. It was customary to teach photography through black and white, and as a result, color photography was seen to be more commercial and less interpretive or "artistic". We were full of it back then. A more considered answer has to do with the properties and the power that color possesses in our lives, both in the real world and in image making. It has to do with the assumptions a viewer makes when looking at images, and how they interpret what they see, and this is where it gets a lot more complex. Color has a lot of information contained within it. Even though we see the world every day, we don't realize how much information gets thrown at us just by the act of looking. When we receive this information, we automatically begin to interpret it. For instance, if I have a photo of a tree and the leaves are all green and bright, I tend to automatically think "summer". If that same tree is photographed at the exact same angle but has warm colors in the leaves, I think "autumn". It's the same tree, but the information contained in the color has changed my interpretation without really impinging on my consciousness. I just think of the season even though the image is of a tree. There is nothing wrong with this, but for me, it makes a color image something that has to be interpreted as "real". A picture of a tree is real because I see a tree. But of course, it isn't real. It's a two-dimensional object on a monitor or colored inks or dyes on a piece of paper. Although the tree may be realistic, it certainly isn't real. But I think of it as real. Because of this, something seems to be missing – a lost opportunity to interpret the scene as a viewer. I feel that sense of loss and want it back. In some ways, that color photograph triggered assumptions simply by being in color. Things are not so apparent in black and white. Since we don't see the world in black and white, we don't have a set of experiences that tells us what to think when we look at a black and white image. The black and white image of a tree doesn't have warm colored leaves, so we don't know that a certain season is upon us. The information in the photograph has been reduced to its basic components of line, shape, texture and form. We must "fill in" the missing pieces. As a photographer, I don't just point my camera in some random direction and hope for the best – or at least I hope I don't. I have a sense of how I interpret the world through my eyes and through my experiences. When I photograph, I bring that sense to my image making by making choices of angle and position, by the kind of camera and lens I use, by choosing to look at something and thinking I want to photograph it. When a viewer looks at the photo I created, they in turn, bring their experiences to the table. With a color image, we still interpret, even if it isn't so obvious. So viewing a black and white image just makes us interpret all the more. By choosing not to present an image in color, I create a layer of abstraction that a viewer must take time to understand. This is a way for me to help a viewer spend that extra time engaged with the image I created. When they are more engaged, they have a greater opportunity to gain something more than they would normally. When it comes to actually creating a black and white image, I have many choices. I don't just convert my digital color images to black and white by pressing a button and making it so, even though my software has a button to do that. I want more than just a color image where the color is gone. I want one where the color is transformed. The software I use doesn't remove the color – the reds and blues and greens are still there, but the image on the monitor looks black gray and white. I am able to manipulate those underlying colors to interpret my image in different ways. To do this, I must take time to decide what tones will represent each color in the image. A black and white image is actually full of gray tones, and these tones have a very great range to choose from. There is no specific shade of gray that correlates with a specific color, so I am free to use that range of tones to my advantage when interpreting a scene. As an example, I shot an image of a leaf on the sidewalk in color, but then was able to interpret this scene in different ways, one with very light tones, and one with much darker tones. You may ask which is the right one or even prefer one over the other, but who's to say. A more straightforward (some would say more realistic!) interpretation might be the image with the greater range of gray tones, but a minimalist would prefer the lighter tones that leave more to the imagination. The point is not which is "right", but that I am able to interpret the scene in very different ways. When I view a scene in color, it is such a powerful element. Color supersedes textures and tones, shapes and forms. It is just too overpowering to ignore. When I convert an image to black and white, I remove this power and emphasize all those elements that were suppressed. By choosing to see a shadow as contrast and shape, not just a dark area, I can isolate a subject or emphasize an emotion. Without color, the rough texture of a tree or the softness of the clouds become important elements in the image. This is why I prefer black and white over color – I have a much greater degree of flexibility because I have removed information, something that seems counterintuitive, but in reality gives me the freedom to express myself and the scene in any way I choose. When I reduce the image to those basic components of line, shape, texture and form, I open up all those possibilities that these elements afford me. And when the viewer has to pause and consider, actually think beyond their comfort zone, they gain something in return – they get to see the world in a completely different and dynamic way. For me, that gift is the magic of black and white.
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You have to ask yourself, what is photography? If it isn't the equipment, if it isn't the technology or the digital manipulation, what is it? Since the beginning days of photography, we have recorded the light, or to put it another way, we have recorded how we see light and its effects on our surroundings. In this way, we communicate not only what we are looking at, but what we see and how it feels. When we take a photograph, we are creating an image by recording light (and its conjoined twin shadow). The way light falls on an object, the shadows it creates, make a two dimensional image seem like it has texture, that it has depth, that it has substance. How we position ourselves in relation to this light creates the forms we see, can give us a sense of movement, of direction. We can lead a viewers eye by the way we place lines and shape, how we manipulate both positive and negative space in an image, and in that way we form the moods and interpretations of what we have photographed. We go beyond simple recording of a subject, endeavoring to place more into our images by how we record and interpret a scene. All of this is through the control of light. Without light, we don't have a photograph. Photography, after all, means light drawing. If we strip away the technology and our notions of what we think we are supposed to be doing, we are left with light as the image making component. We do have to think about shutter speeds and exposures, apertures and depth of field, all the technical bits, but in the end, all we really have is light. And if we can train ourselves to actually "see" light, not just accept it as an illumination, to actually see how it falls on an object, how it shapes it, forms it, and in so doing, how it moves us, we can be truly successful in our photographic image making. But to see light is incredibly difficult. That can't be true, can it? What I mean by "see light" is not just to "look" at light, but to actually see what it is doing to a scene. A cloudy diffuse light illuminates in a very different way than does the sharp contrast of full sun. The colors of a sunrise are very different from those at high noon, or those in the rain. Seasons can change the way light hits an object or the colors you see, and the lights direction changes how a shadow falls on the ground to form shapes and negative space. We are in essence blind to light because it is everywhere and we take it for granted, thinking of it only as a thing that illuminates what we are looking at. We have to train ourselves not just to look at a scene, but to see how light has helped us interpret what is there. Light is everything. It is shape and form and texture. It is color or the lack thereof. It makes things smooth and soft or sharp and harsh. Once we begin to really see this, once we begin this process of seeing and not just looking, we begin to get a feel for the light and how it changes everything. Back in the late 1800s, the painter Claude Monet created a series of paintings of the Rouen Cathedral in France. He painted it at different times of the day, at different times of the year. Each painting, always from the same perspective, is very different from the next because Monet wasn't painting the Rouen Cathedral at all. He was painting light. He captured the colors, the textures, the atmosphere present in that scene because he saw light instead of taking it for granted as an illumination source. The effects of the light were what was important, and that is what makes these paintings what they are... the capture of light in all its variety. When we photograph, we are doing the same thing, and in my view, even more so. – Our paint is not made up of an emulsion of minerals, but is the light itself. – Our palette is formed not by mixing colors, but by the shapes, textures, forms and colors light creates in a scene. – Each decision we make, each angle we choose to shoot from, each time we point our lens, changes how light affects what we see. As did Monet, when we take a photograph, we have to do more than just look at a scene. We must see it as light, and then choose how we are to interpret that light through our photographic practice. In this way, we go beyond recording. We create something new, something greater than before. We imbue perceptions, reactions, the sensations of light and feeling. In a way, we capture the light, a moment in time that will never be the same again, and bring it to life through the lens of our view. |
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