Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2016/03/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hallelujah - ain?t that the truth! Gerry > On 28 Mar 2016, at 23:31, Ted Grant <tedgrant at shaw.ca> wrote: > > May I offer, LADIES & gentlemen a few items re== B&W and Colour? IMAGES as > printed! FILM OR DIGITAL! > > This is from experience of over 65 years as a real live rookie to > professional photojournalist to this day when I have decided to hang-up my > Leica's! Predominately of the M & R type film cameras! My digital M8 I > have used constantly since it arrived on the market! I shall keep it near > by just in case????? > Oh I've a fair amount of B&W and colour capturing digital moments via the > M8! I Love it! Oh please don't throw-up any of the techie crap, good, bad > or ugly into all this damn electronic stuff that you have been in BORN > into the digital/computer world! Please leave it alone! I don't care, as > I'm reasonably alive? Well at the moment? An alive Photojournalist > photographer. For how much longer? What the heck? Who cares? > But if you accept my quotation from many years gone by? > "When you photograph people in "Colour?" You photograph their clothes! But > when you photograph people in B&W? YOU PHOTOGRAPH THEIR SOULS" > That's as true as I sit here alive and typing it! Actually that's written > in stone in a huge shopping mall in South Africa' with my name! :-) > Don't just think about it, look at hundreds of thousands of photographs > you've seen! > The dead and dying always look worse in B&W, Soldiers, civilians, > whomever? DEATH==SAD ANYWHERE? > > Their is a power in B&W vision not perceived with the same power in > colour! However the clothes stand out more so. In colour, faded, brilliant > or not? > So be it? It's our human vision as it see's LIFE & DEATH! > Or objects that fall into the "non-life elements" of cupboards, cabinets > etc! Ancient things! > > Not sure this is of any help in seeing life and death, good, bad or ugly? > :-( > cheers, > Dr. Ted Grant OC > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: LUG [mailto:lug-bounces+tedgrant=shaw.ca at leica-users.org] On > Behalf Of George Lottermoser > Sent: March-28-16 12:56 PM > To: Group Users Leica > Subject: Re: [Leica] Monochrom(e) photos > > >> On Mar 19, 2016, at 7:39 PM, Howard Ritter <hlritter at bex.net> 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> > > appears you and the MM are getting along well > on your first date. > > Explore those files deeply and to their limits > as they are amazingly resilient > > George Lottermoser > george.imagist at icloud.com > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > https://www.avast.com/antivirus > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information