[Leica] Re: [LRflex] Power of B&W?

[rpalmier at depaul.edu (bob palmieri)]

Well, ted... you asked...

This B&W vs color business has occupied a lot of my time lately.  I 
went back and tried to remember what I used to think, which was 
something along the lines of  "B&W is the acoustic music of 
photography"  or some such not-so-great analogy.

Sometimes B&W seems too sentimental or dramatic.  However, color is 
such a monstrously strong emotional element (which can be diffused or 
de-fused by having too much of it, or too many conflicting colors) that 
it ruins more pictures than it helps, in my viewing experience.  In 
fact, the most common problem I see in snaps by non-serious 
photographers is that there's too much information of every kind 
without any organizing principles to help us poor viewers receive any 
impact.

Also, my impression is that our brains use up so much processing power 
in color perception that it takes away resources that could be used to 
take in other content in the frame.  However, for some reason I also 
get the impression that slightly toning B&W images seems to wake 
something up in the viewer that isn't there in strictly greyscale 
snaps.

These days I feel that the decision of B&W or color needs to be an 
active choice determined by every individual image.

So, earlier today I had to do some B&W scanning of film and I decided 
to post some of it, along with some B&W/color comparisons of a couple 
of things I've posted before.

Here's some stuff that I have no choice about, since they were shot on 
B&W film (with one minor exception)

The actor Paul Newman (apologies for the brutal application of the 
"shadow side" principle; I was making lemonade from the lemon of 
extreme backlighting):

http://gallery.leica-users.org/album463/Paul_Newman_at_80_dark

Radio host Scott Simon (apologies for the bad scan):

http://gallery.leica-users.org/album463/Scott_Simon

A luncher in Chicago:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/album463/StepLounger_1_0

And a B&W verion of the "swishy pan" Rodeo shot:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/album463/next_penning_jpeg

B&W vs color comparisons of some new/old snaps appear elsewhere in the 
gallery:

http://gallery.leica-users.org/album463

I have some definite opinions about which ones look better which way...

Bob Palmieri