Color and Black and White

I've thought about it some more, and here's where I come down:

The problem with mixing color and black-and-white together is that color is so great it makes black-and-white look bad, and black-and-white is so great it makes color look bad.

They're great in different ways, is all.

Of course, great art convinces, and thus there are exceptions. In art there are always exceptions.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Richard: "I love classical music. I also love 1970s hard rock. I'd never listen to them back to back."

Kevin Bourque: "Once I see an image in color on the computer screen it's hard for me to 'un-see' the color when I convert it to B&W. I'm always comparing the two. If something starts out in monochrome (film in the darkroom) I'm perfectly fine since it was always that way. As Calvin's Dad explains it...."

Gordon Lewis: "I recently had to deal with this issue while selecting photos for a book I've written on street photography (to be published this June by Rocky Nook). My earlier work was all done on B&W film. My post-digital work is predominantly in color. In this case, mixing the two turned out to be less of an issue because the photos were being used mainly to illustrate particular concepts and approaches rather than to present a unified body of work.

"Another thing that helps is that the style of my B&W photos is not dramatically different from my color work. Regardless of whether I'm shooting in color or B&W, I'm still attracted to subjects with bold graphic shapes, deep shadows, distinct textures, street life, and so on. What works for me won't necessarily work for everyone, of course. All I'm saying is that mixing color and B&W sometimes can or must be done."

Comments

[John Krumm]

What I find is that it's difficult for my brain to switch back and forth between color and monotone images. It's especially difficult to switch an image back to color after I've seen it in black and white for a while. It's like I'm looking at the worst kind of color hdr creation. Perhaps this is what it happening to the judges when they view mixed portfolios.

[Bruce McL]

It’s interesting, and educational, to see you working this out. I suggest that thinking a bit more about the specifics of what results you want may help you clarify your rules.

I’ve already learned something from this project. Lately I have been using a folder with recent photos as a source of desktop pictures, which rotate every 15 minutes. It’s very helpful to see an image of mine on the screen when I am not actively thinking about it.

[Eric Fredine]

"great art convinces"

I'd like to read more of your thoughts on this (perhaps it's in the works because you've used the phrase twice recently). I'm not sure I'm convinced. Photographs are ambiguous. It's one of the medium's merits. Perhaps you mean great art convinces you of it's merit rather than persuades you to adopt a point of view?

[Maggie Osterberg]

I'm not saying this is great art, but it's one of the few selective color shots I've done that I think works:

[Ed Kirkpatrick]

To avoid seeing the photo in color, you could always apply a B&W conversion to the imported image in Lightroom as you bring it in. Then all your previews and editing would start with the grayscaled version. Of course, you have already seen the image in color when you pressed the shutter.

[Colin B.]

I too shared your dislike of mixing colour and black and white. Recently, however, I saw and purchased a book called Pikin Slee by Vivian Sassen which I found really inspiring in both the quality of most of the individual photographs and their combination of colour and black and white. She has a show on here in London at the ICA which I haven't seen yet. Here are a couple of links:
http://www.amazon.com/Viviane-Sassen-Pikin-Slee/dp/3791349538
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/15/pikin-slee-viviane-sassen-review-geometry-rainforest