[Leica] There is more to light than how bright it is...

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

B. D. Colen said:

> But there are many, many that are not. Imagine Salgado's work in
> color...Imagine Eugene Smith's...<<<<<,

Hey wait a minute, how about, " imagine Ted Grant's documentaries and books
on
the medical profession? Or the latest by Sandy Carter and ted Grant on Women
in Medicine?

Hell I'd put our work up against either one of these two guys! Look at the
books and tell me they'd have done a better shoot.

And Andrew I read this piece about B&W and I'd love to go head to head with
this person as in many cases he's full of it up to his eye balls!

Sure there are assignments that require being shot with colour because
everything is colourful ......... how about India for example in some
situations?  By the same token some of the documentary photography I've seen
on India in B&W couldn't be any more powerful in any other film medium than
B&W!

In most cases the subject itself dictates the film to be used and using the
wrong one at the right time wipes out the power of the image.

To me all the war stuff I shot in B&W was a hundred times more powerful than
the colour.

Ask yourself what is the picture you remember the most of any you've seen
and the chances are it'll be a B&W. No not for everyone, but ask people on
the street and in most cases they'll pick some B&W image they remember,
something like Eddie Adams of the VC getting his brains blown out!

I stand by my "When you photograph people in colour you photograph their
clothes. But when you photograph them in B&W, you photograph their souls.

And if this isn't true why is that a couple of portrait photographers in
London, England renovated their studio, stopped shooting colour and
re-opened the shop to a... "we only do B&W portraits because we show the
innerself in our photographs. Yep a great line and it worked.

They filled their window with beautiful B&W portraits, doubled their prices
and tripled their clientele in less than three months! And they laughed all
the way to the bank!

And colour is the only way to shoot because the world is seen in colour?
Bull shit!

ted