Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2016/03/19
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Howard, I think your B&W photos do a great job of capturing the splendor and character of a past age. The darker images are impressive and appropriate. Hospitalitas is beautiful! Jim Nichols Tullahoma, TN USA On 3/19/2016 7:39 PM, Howard Ritter wrote: > I?ve always been drawn to B&W photos, both to make them and to appreciate > them. All photographers who aren't color blind have had the experience of > wondering whether an image would look better in color or in B&W, probably > for many shared reasons and for some idiosyncratic ones as well. The > common experience is to look at two versions of a photo and to decide that > the B&W looks better than the color, or not, but I can?t recall ever > thinking that only the B&W version was pleasing and worthwhile to look at. > Why should draining the color out of an unremarkable image make looking at > it worthwhile? If a photograph is a representation of reality seen from > one point in space, looking in one direction, at one instant in time, what > is it that causes removing an aspect of reality?color?to render the image > more worthwhile, or even moreso, to render the B&W version worthwhile when > the color one was not? For me, in photos that are better in B&W, I think > it?s the removal of color as a distraction from the dynamic or the tension > of the tableau caught in the image, and the way this emphasis involves the > viewer more intimately in the story. Nothing original in that analysis, of > course, but just how powerful this effect can be was just brought home to > me by some recent B&W photos I made. > > Thinking about my affinity for B&W (considerably stimulated by Lluis?s > work with the MM and by Jim Shulman?s, Chris Crawford?s, and others' film > work) and how I?d gotten largely away from it with the advent of digital, > I decided to trade up to an MM when Leica made me the offer for my > sensor-corroded M9. > > Cynthia and I, as new residents of North Carolina, this week made the > obligatory pilgrimage to Biltmore, the 19th-century pile that George > Vanderbilt built at Asheville with his grandfather?s fortune. No > McMansion, but a bona fide one. Huge, complex, with massive stonework, > endless features and surprises, and more of everything (except a darkroom > and an observatory) than anyone would ever need, it would be a prime venue > for Victorian-themed dinner mysteries, Halloween parties, and all manner > of creepy doings, as well as a prime candidate for the kind of decrepitude > that follows with being made for a vastly different era and vastly greater > fortunes, as seen in British grand manor houses that haven?t been rescued > by the Trust. Instead, it?s become the nidus of a vast entrepreneurial > project, with scandalous admission fees, season passes (!), themed tours, > gift shops, a cafe and a lunch restaurant, a winery, theme-faithful > hostelries, etc. I concede that it?s worth a day?s visit. > > I took the MM along and was pleased to find that a number of features of > the house made for B&W photos that I found quite pleasing, many of which > would be quite ordinary and not worth posting to the Gallery had they been > in color. For the most part, these images are dark ones that convey a > sense of vague menace or something sinister glimpsed in a reflection. The > copper pots and pans are not an exception to this, although I think they?d > have looked good in color. > > Biltmore and personal effects. A guidebook and, inexplicably, a pair of > eyeglasses left at a vista point. > http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/Biltmore+and+personal+effects.jpg.html > > <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/Biltmore+and+personal+effects.jpg.html> > > Fountain. In the wall at the base of the south slope. > http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/Fountain.jpg.html?g2_fromNavId=x4b127eeb > > <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/Fountain.jpg.html?g2_fromNavId=x4b127eeb> > > Copper Pots. The kitchen's originals, having been used to prepare dishes > for every kind of person from heads of state to humble servants. > http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/CopperPots.jpg.html > > <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/CopperPots.jpg.html> > > Vanderbilt. George himself, a bibliophile, who, judging from the portraits > in the house, liked to pose with his left hand over his upper right chest. > http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/Vanderbilt.jpg.html > > <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/Vanderbilt.jpg.html> > > Gun Room. Lots of shotgun hunting on the grounds back in the day. > http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/GunRoom.jpg.html > <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/GunRoom.jpg.html> > > Hospitalitas. Stained glass at the wine shop. > http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/Hospitalitas.jpg.html > > <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/Hospitalitas.jpg.html> > > Wine Library. In the catacombs beneath the winery, a former dairy barn > (??). A rivulet of an unknown fluid emerging from the dark depths? > http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/WineLibrary.jpg.html > > <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/WineLibrary.jpg.html> > > C&C appreciated. > > ?howard > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >