Open Mike: Colors of the Essence and Other Comments

I thought I'd continue the discussion about color photography by answering a few comments this morning. Or commenting on them.

Tullio Emanuele asked: "What about subjects that are shot in color because COLORS are the essence of the subject? I am thinking about birds, flowers, exotic wildlife...the list could go on forever."

That's very true. In a lot of cases, color is an essential part of the information being conveyed. I'd say this is most true with subject matter in the natural world. Eliot Porter was a pioneer color photographer, and argued that he had to photograph in color because it was an essential aspect of so much in nature. Consider that various birds are essentially identical except for their coloring, or that coloring can be crucial to the identification of birds, insects, or other animals; it wouldn't make much sense to photograph a chameleon in two states of color without photographing in color. Interiors can look fine in B&W but not if you're trying to record the color palette the designer used. Other subjects that need to be shown in color include colored gemstones; flags; and designer clothing most of the time (although Albert Watson and Peter Lindbergh, among others, were fashion photographers who photographed mainly in black and white). There are lots of times you need color just to accurately describe what you're depicting.

Of course, looked at the other way around, this might be just an aspect of photography's humdrum role as a tool in commerce and so many other quotidian purposes. The vast majority of photography isn't expressive, personal, or transformative, it's simply workmanlike: an insurance record, an advertisement, a decoration, a communique, etc. The fact that color is desirable for many of these purposes isn't necessarily relevant to artistic choices.

But what Tullio says is, yes, always a consideration.

No eye for color
I wanted to mention that I recall from long-ago reading that Ansel Adams was apparently notorious among his friends for having a truly awful color sense. He apparently loved showing up at parties in colorful clothing, but he would wear stripes with plaids or extravagantly clashing colors while apparently being blissfully unaware of any problem. It's true that he shot all that Kodachrome (even 8x10, imagine!—as someone mentioned the other day) but he depended on God to take care of the colors. Because, of course, he was out photographing wilderness, as usual. Although I seem to dimly recall that he complained about the never-ending palette of blue and green, blue and green, and more blue and green! That might have been someone else, though, who I'm confusing with Adams. Wish I could remember the sources of these things...but I don't. I "engaged" with Adams in my 20s, and not much since then, although I did read Mary Alinder's 1996 book when it came out.

Original in B&W
My former dj friend Kim (here's a fine mix he made on Wednesday) used to have a pet peeve about coming across B&W reproductions of color pictures in books accompanied by the words "original in color." His bitter argument was that the color was half the point and you can't claim to have reproduced the original at all if it's not in color. He had the last laugh, though, when the "colorization" craze came along—spawning a whole raft of movies and pictures where the rubric could have been "original in black and white"! (Which, by the way, I hated. Vandalism, desecration, and disrespect!)

A big reddish rectangle

Mark wrote: "Here’s a story for you. I was involved in a court case involving The Red Rothko. This was probably 10–15 years ago. I’d never heard of him. It was owned by a high-society couple in Texas who had loaned it to an art museum there. The husband died unexpectedly and the widow soon discovered they were house rich but cash poor. Not wanting her wealthy friends to know, she requested and received the painting back in order to sell it. She contacted the art dealer from whom they purchased it as he specialized in Rothko. He put out feelers and came up with an oligarch willing to pay nine or 10 million, I don’t recall exactly which. She insisted he sign a secrecy agreement and agree not to resell it. I don’t recall if there was a time limit when that agreement would expire. Obviously, she should have put it up for auction, but didn’t want anyone to know she was forced to do this. The sale went through, she was paid, and the dealer got his cut. Within a short time she learned the buyer put it up for auction and so the cat was out of the bag. It sold for $27 million. She sued both the dealer and purchaser/seller along with the auction house.

Mark Rothko, Untitled (1961)

"To this day it boggles my mind that a big reddish rectangle could be worth anywhere near that. Rothko mixed food in his paint, along with other things. Weird but effective."

I remember that case. So it cost her ~$17 million for a failed attempt to hush-up her "poverty" relative to her friends. No wonder she was having money troubles! The funny thing is, half of the "Joneses" she was trying to keep up with were probably having private money worries of their own.

You might enjoy a book that came out 15 years ago: The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art by Don Thompson. I have a feeling we're getting a little off the topic, so here's a delectation conundrum for you: if you could have one or the other to keep and enjoy (i.e., trying to remove the possibility of profit from your answer), would you prefer to own Rothko's Untitled (1961) a.k.a. The Red Rothko, or William Eggleston's Greenwood, Mississippi (Red Ceiling)?

Lucky timing

Dave Levingston wrote: "Black-and-white photography is an accidental product of the limitations of early photographic processes and, later, of the limitations of printing processes, particularly in newspapers, where I started as a photographer. If the inventors of photography had been able to perfect a color process that wasn't very difficult, we would not have black and white photography. The inventors wanted to make color photos, but were unable to because it was just too hard with the processes available to them."

So true, and something I'm so deeply thankful for and always will be. Black-and-white (monochrome, in British) was a great gift, and it was indeed adventitious, as you say. It might never have been. Recall that I've consistently opined, right from the beginning of digital imaging, that digital imaging should not have been called photography but something else; that photography as we knew it was something distinct, something that is becoming vestigial now. It was an incredible accident of history and the evolution of technology that we had photography in a central role in culture for virtually 150 years with relatively few changes in its basic principles, as they were devised by Talbot in the 1830s. I'm also very grateful that my life in photography bestrode the two main currents—I got to see the digital transition and the coming of age of color, the smartphone and the advent of near-instantaneous electronic transmission, Photoshop, the virtual end of the print, AI, and whatever is yet to come, but I also got a solid grounding in the practice, the culture, the history, the accomplishments, and the lore of silver-halide photography as it used to be, while it was still current. It's amazing that the primacy of B&W lasted very strongly even up to my time. When I first worked till dawn making 8x10 prints from Verichrome Pan film on Medalist paper in a primitive darkroom set up in a bathroom under the basement stairs, I was working in a way that was not so different from the way photographers had worked a hundred years earlier. I arrived at the end of a long tradition that had strong ligatures to the past—and got to immerse myself in it before culture and technology changed forever. Lucky timing for sure!

Mike

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Featured Comments from:

Dennis Mook: "Back in the 1970s, I was a forensic detective, and we photographed all crime scenes with Pentax Spotmatics, only a 50mm ƒ/1.4 SMC Takumar lens (for normal perspective) and Tri-X film. The courts forbade color film as it was considered too inflammatory for a jury. Curiously, our testimony always had to include the phrase, 'A true and accurate representation of the scene as I found it.' But it wasn’t, as the scenes were captured in black and white! I think if color film had been invented first, black and white never would have been allowed in court.

"Several years ago, I started a project of photographing subject matter 'Just for the Color.' I found looking for compositions 'just for the color' was fun and interesting and caused me to see in a different way. Here is a link to that gallery on my website if anyone is interested."

Albert Smith: "Besides traditional photography, let's not forget another medium that put B&W into the gestalt: television. Those of us of a certain age remember when B&W television, both the hardware and programming, was the norm, and we just accepted that as perfectly natural. I can remember that even when color TVs became available (at a very high cost), networks still initially produced new shows in B&W, only going to color after they were proving their popularity. Then the classic brag, 'In Color' was displayed with the title, I suppose so that people that only still had B&W sets would know."

Mike replies: And then there are those of us who deliberately bought B&W sets until we couldn't find them any more. (Big sh*t-eatin' grin.) I remember once when I was watching the movie Wall Street with about five professional photographer friends when that movie was first out on VHS, probably in the early '90s or thereabouts. The host had provided popcorn. During one of the opening cityscapes, one friend said, "that's a nice shot." I waited a few beats, then said, "yeah, 'cept it's moving." Paused for a beat, then added, "...and it's in color." There were groans all around and they all started throwing popcorn at me. 

No doubt you (or at least some readers) recall our epic Readers' Choice list of The Best B&W films. Three that I like that aren't on the list are The Asphalt Jungle, In a Lonely Place, and The Best Years of Our Lives.

Rob de Loe: "When I became serious about photography several decades ago, I shot colour reversal film for a short while, but switched to black and white very quickly. I shot exclusively black and white when I used film, and when I switched to digital in 2014, I shot exclusively for black and white. I never understood people who made a photograph and then decided on the computer whether it should be black and white or colour. I shot for black and white. I simply didn’t press the shutter button when the image in the viewfinder looked to be a colour photo.

"And then I switched to colour. I don’t mean I started making some colour photographs in addition to black and white. I switched completely over to colour in April, 2022.

"I feel like a person who loved classical music until he had a head injury, and now can’t listen to classical anymore. I’ve tried a couple times to shoot for black and white, but it’s gone. It’s like a switch flipped in my brain. I still enjoy some of my black-and-white work from film and digital, but almost as if it’s someone else’s work.

"Trust me, I find this very strange too!"

Mark Sampson: "When I worked as a guard at the Phillips Collection (2014–17) I often was assigned to the Rothko Room there. Never has it been more true that 'THE REPRODUCTION IS NOT THE ART.' Sorry for shouting, but the 'I don't get it' people (in almost every case) need to experience the art before speaking up. Rothko vs. Eggleston? I've never seen an original Eggleston dye transfer so I won't choose, but remember that 'There's no accounting for taste.'"

Comments

[James Sinks]

"Nature is too green and poorly lit."

An internet friend passed that on to me as being from Francois Boucher...but the internet is the internet, so it's just as likely to be from Boucher as it is Homer Simpson, John the Baptist, or some unknowable and anonymous wit.

[db]

... would you prefer to own Rothko's Untitled (1961) a.k.a. The Red Rothko, or William Eggleston's Greenwood, Mississippi (Red Ceiling)?

In what world universe are either of these considered art? Askin' for a friend.

[Well, certainly ours, if you notice the values ($27 million and $150,000 to $250,000 respectively.) And I would say those are both not just art, but great art. The Eggleston would have to be on any objective list of the ten most important color photographs ever made, if only because of its historical importance.

Your friend should be encouraged to make a special trip to see a Rothko show in person. Arrive in a contemplative mood and with an open mind--prepare beforehand if necessary--and be prepared to spend a lot of time with the paintings, without interruption, expectations, a skeptical attitude, or divided attention. I can't predict what his or her experience will be, but I'm pretty sure the experience will be radically different than seeing one tiny JPEG approximation on a screen. --Mike]

[Dave Millier]

1. Not sure why you think British for B&W is "monochrome". I know it is sometimes called monochrome but it's always been B&W to me.

2. Neither the painting nor the photo appeal to me and I'm someone who loves colour abstract photography. The painting is too simple to have anything other than cursory interest and the photo is just the usual sloppily composed Egglestone. Never could understand why some photographers become world famous. Probably down to academics and critics and the bored super rich showing off. To me if you are going to pull off colour abstracts you need obvious compositional skill. Here's an example of what I mean from a random google search: https://webneel.com/daily/5-abstract-photography-wallpaper-sasha-ivanovic?size=_original

I'll be kind and say Egglestone is too "loose" in his composing to be appealing. Never been a fan of styles of photography deliberately made to look as if the photographer accidentally pressed the button. Personal taste, of course. YMMV.

[Maybe because that's what people at Ilford tended to call it in my day, and people at the British magazines I worked for. And because of books such as "Way Beyond Monochrome" by Lambrecht and Woodhouse and "Ilford Monochrome Darkroom Practice" by Jack Coote, etc. The term is used much more there than here at any rate. Or was. --Mike]

[robert e]

This is a fascinating topic, and one that resonates with a recent visit to the big Manet-Degas exhibition in New York, which was far more enlightening than I'd anticipated.
https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/manet-degas

One unexpected revelation had to do with how the two painters dealt with light and color. Like most great figurative painters, whether of his or other eras, Manet masterfully depicted the way light illuminates objects, people, nature, etc. To a dramatic and sometimes startling degree, the subjects in many of his portraits and intimate scenes glowed as if lit directly by the gallery's lights. I believe this effect was aided by the fact Manet most often rendered the same, painterly "full-spectrum" light, and utilized the full tonal scale.

Degas, meanwhile, seems to have had different concerns. His paintings glowed as well, but with ambiance rather than luminance, an atmosphere that tinted--and was tinted by--the objects and surroundings within that particular scene. He seemed as concerned with how objects and surroundings affect light as with how light affects things, in other words.

I don't know how much that observation contributes to the topic at hand. I imagine, though, that had color photography existed then, Degas might have seen more use for it than Manet might have.

["He seemed as concerned with how objects and surroundings affect light as with how light affects things, in other words." That's a very insightful sentence. Never occurred to me before. But it rings true.

Oh, and I believe Degas did use photography in his work and in his conception of composition. He went through a period in the mid 1890s of great enthusiasm for photography. Which apparently did not last long. There was a book from the Met a number of years ago. I just discovered the entire book is online:

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Edgar_Degas_Photographer/rZkw_1SRbEUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover

--Mike]

[Merle]

I keep thinking about this. If you shoot monochrome and decide you want to see it in color, just use that there "colorization" process in post. ;)

[JH]

The subjectivity of the arts produces some interesting and sometimes amusing discussion, right down to what one considers art. Sure photography stated with B/W until color was developed - Polaroid andTV were similar. But drawing probably started with a charred stick out of the fire on the cave walls until the "artist" discovered colored pigments.
Yesterday we visited a gallery where the artist worked partly painting in colors and partly with pen/brush in India ink.Both were great. Ever get lost looking at the Leonardo drawings in ink?
Many artists - including photographers - vary their media as much as their subject matter - and should be congratulated for their vision.
I have a kid sho has been in the computer graphics industry for several decades and is an expert on color rendition. He's often surprised by how little many people understand the issues for color rendition in both film and monitors.
The now defunct Annenberg Center For Photography in LA used to have a staff member who was an expert on color to ensure the large prints exhibited there were viewed properly. Most of the galleries we visit are very poor at lighting and color. And controlling color at home is a real #$%^&*(~ !

[Kye Wood]

If Mark Rothko, Untitled (1961) were called Mark Rothko, Apocalyptic Hellscape (1961), then maybe it would be worth even more than $27M.

Personally, I think it's an astonishing painting.

As for Black and White and/or colour - Colour is pop music. B&W is jazz. You can have too much of either.

And to be honest, pop music is more fun (much as I love jazz).

[Dave Jenkins]

Choosing between Rothko and Eggleston is a no-win situation.

In all this discussion about color photography and color photographers, I have yet to see the name of one of the very greatest: Jay Maisel.

[PDLanum]

Ansel Adams did do a little work in color. Check this out, the web versions suffer from poor reproduction.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/ansel-adams-in-color-145315674/

[Stan B,]

After shooting B&W exclusively for decades (and believing such would it always be), been shooting color exclusively since 2016 when I switched to digital. Admittedly, the vast majority of my images are not primarily... colorist in nature. I'm OK with that long as the colors don't detract. I'm also enjoying the hell out of it- I honestly think the added info and emotion of color balance nicely with my now fading senses, monochrome abstraction was more attuned to balancing the heightened senses of youth. Anyway, that's my story and I'm...

[Moose]

"Ansel Adams was apparently notorious among his friends for having a truly awful color sense. He apparently loved showing up at parties in colorful clothing, but he would wear stripes with plaids or extravagantly clashing colors while apparently being blissfully unaware of any problem.

Or laughing at the fools who didn't get his sense of humor . . .

"It's true that he shot all that Kodachrome (even 8x10, imagine!—as someone mentioned the other day) . . ."

That was probably me. I'm a fan of Ansel Adams in Color, Little, Brown, revised and expanded edition, 2009

Like the Little, Brown B&W books, the reproductions are excellent. I have at least ten different books of his photos and have seen original prints many times — I am not unfamiliar with his work.

Unfortunately, the List of Plates, with 155 entries is incomplete, with a few other full size and a few more smaller reproductions.

Is it all fabulous? Of course not. Neither are all his B&Ws. OTOH, there are many excellent photos, IMO. Several are closely akin to famous B&Ws

That said, I'm quite fond of Ansel Adams in Color

". . . but he depended on God to take care of the colors."

This is untrue - and unfair. St. Ansel thought deeply, for decades, about color photography, not uncommonly disagreeing with himself. Ansel Adams in Color has a lengthy, excellent selection of his writing about color, many never before published, at the back.

I found it deeply interesting. It certainly goes further into the relationship between B&W and color than you have done here. A small selection:

"In thinking about the "accuracy" of color photography, we should review the characteristics of photography in general in terms of representation and interpretation. Black-and-white photography is accepted as a stylized medium; values are intentionally accented or subdued in reference to their
"photometric-equivalent" value. There is little or no "reality" in the blacks, grays and whites of either the informational or expressive black-and-white image, and yet we have learned to interpret these values as meaningful and "real."
With color photography we are introduced to a more potent "trap of reality," and this fact is accentuated when we can make an immediate comparison of the color print with the subject. With conventional color photography, there is always a delay between the making of the exposure and seeing the final product (transparency or print). Comparisons are made with memory rather than with fact!
If the colors do not distress us by obvious falseness or poor aesthetic relationships, we accept the conventional color picture as a statement, a symbol, or even as a record of the subject. In my experience, no color photograph will convey a truly accurate interpretation of the subject although one color may be more satisfactory than the others.... The accuracy of the color photograph is more a matter of belief than of actuality. This fact is not appreciated by many photographers because a direct and immediate comparison is seldom pos-sible. Adjustments are required when we make direct comparisons of the Polacolor print (and any other color print) with the reality we have photographed. I am sure we will learn to appreciate a color photograph as an aesthetic experience — a statement in values and colors which will evoke affirmations of mood and spirit— as well as an interpretation of the world of which we are a part. Psychologically any one color is affected by other colors, by changes of light quality and intensity, by the inherent contrast of the scene, and also by the objective qualities of the subject and the subjective reactions of the photographer.
The miraculous computer which is our eye-mind-psyche complex perceives exquisitely small differences of value and color and can instantly develop a condition of acceptance or rejection, or of comprehension or bewilderment." pp 147-148

BTW: "The visual tests I had at Polaroid show that I have an excellent color perception over the full spectrum." p156

He also references binding CC filters with slides to correct color.

[Moose]

Dennis Mook saith ""Several years ago, I started a project of photographing subject matter 'Just for the Color.' I found looking for compositions 'just for the color' was fun and interesting and caused me to see in a different way. Here is a link to that gallery on my website if anyone is interested."

I'm interested, and did enjoy it!

[Moose]

I feel connected to the Rothko because I saw John Logan's Tony winning play live - watched a red Rothko being painted, along with his engagement in the difficult process of doing it.

It's really too big - but I'd have it.

That Eggleston is egregious. I would pay money not to have it hanging in my house.

[Steve ralser]

Talking about b&w tv (which I remember well). There was a comedy show which introduced color tv to Australia - the Aunty Jack show. Might not be everyone’s sense of humor.

https://youtu.be/hdTC-NiqEOU?si=DllCpSpbd1UUKMy5

[Ken Lunders]

Regarding having either "The Red Rothko, or William Eggleston's Greenwood, Mississippi (Red Ceiling)?"

Neither. I would rather hang my own Red Wall - https://flickr.com/photos/7331818@N02/53331075372

[Herman Krieger]

Could this be Ansel Adams?

[David Dyer-Bennet]

There are not very many widely-respected images that I have less use for than that Rothko or that Eggleston.

The Rothko is more abstract, which makes it less annoying. It's still completely pointless and banal, but the Eggleston is actively annoying (my eye wanders around the frame ticking off flaws).

And I could always hope to find a way around the constraint against caring about the value, in which case I could sell the Rothko for a lot more apparently. (It should go to the home of somebody who would love it!) (Though...if I had to insure it myself, I'd much rather have the Eggleston.)

[David B.]

I don't take photos nowadays to make pictures which look like some scene I saw; I take them to show some oddity, or some feeling about a situation, and to swim around in colours, instead of just taking them for granted.

Although you might call them 'representational' because they look - somewhat - like places or events or people, the intention is for the images to be whole unto themselves ..in other words, I'm just saying 'Look at THIS!'

Here are some wide shots which I put on a page a while ago to explain something about wide lenses: https://www.edituk.com/Wide_Photos.html
..and here are some I've just put up to show what I mean:
https://www.edituk.com/Colour_Photos.html
..like this one (..if it actually appears here..):

..Darn; no it doesn't!

[calvin amari]

"My former dj friend Kim (here's a fine mix he made on Wednesday)...."

Not to gainsay his wide-ranging taste in music, but for a minute I was excited that this may be a link to a selection of Kim's photos. I live with four of them displayed in my house, but am always eager to see more.

[robert e]

Thanks for that link to the Degas the Photographer book, Mike! I look forward to digging into the essays.

The show at the Met included photographs taken by both Manet and Degas. Now I wish I'd taken a closer look at those, but I was there to see the masterpieces, most for the first (and probably last) time. I've read that Manet, too, was fascinated by photography, collected cartes de visite, and used photographs of his paintings (taken by a firm he hired) to make his reduced-size etchings.

[Richard Conolly]

Rothko, no contest.

You’re right, Rothko’s paintings should be experienced in person. I was lucky enough to see them at the Tate Britain a few years ago and they were a revelation. You have to sit and study them, as you said “ Arrive in a contemplative mood and with an open mind”.

I’ve also seen Eggleston’s dye transfer prints and whilst they are impressive they don’t compete.

[Andrew Sheppard]

I just had to register one more time that it's also black and white 'in British', with occasional 'monochrome'. Man, that made my blood itch almost irrationally... We also call the language 'English', not 'British'. Just sayin', as you are wont to say.