[Leica] Street photography in B&W?

[Sonny Carter]

It wasn't a matter of fashion for me.

Until Cibachrome, I wasn't interested in printing color because the quality
was so low for the high cost.

I shot my share of Kodachrome slides when I could afford it, but for me,
and most of us my age, B&W was what we could afford.

When I got into the news business, stringing for UPI and AP, the wire faxes
only transmitted B&W anyhow.  (Rarely you would see a separation set come
across, but we never sent them out of New Orleans or Baton Rouge.)



On Sat, Nov 8, 2014 at 12:00 PM, Tina Manley <tmanley at gmail.com> wrote:

> I would like to apologize for saying color was easy.  I should never post
> anything after I've had two glasses of wine!  Color is not easy!!  Correct
> color is very hard and Ric nails it every time.  I was thinking of the
> point and shoot people with iPhones who only shoot in color and never
> correct or convert anything.
>
> I still like B&W, though! ;-)
>
> Tina
>
> On Sat, Nov 8, 2014 at 12:35 PM, Jayanand Govindaraj <jayanand at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Ric,
> > I agree with you 100%.
> >
> > The point I was trying to make is that the frequently implied notion that
> > B&W is "Art" and "The Real Thing", and that colour is an inferior medium,
> > is, to my mind, completely irrelevant today. Most of the early masters
> shot
> > B&W because that is all they had access to, not because it was a
> conscious
> > artistic choice, and by the time widespread colour film of reasonable
> > quality was available, they were too set in their ways to take full
> > advantage of the new medium, not unlike the extreme reluctance of many
> > photographers to switch from film to digital in the early days of
> digital.
> > In other words, IMHO, there is a heavy dose of artistic propaganda and
> > conditioning here in the repeatedly stated fact of the so called
> > "supremacy" of B&W as an artistic medium. Starting with Ernst Haas and
> Saul
> > Leiter in the 1950s and 1960s, there is enough of a body of excellent
> > street photography in colour - one needs only to look at, say, Raghubir
> > Singh's body of work on the streets of India, or Constantine Manos'
> recent
> > book on the USA to understand what I mean. Similarly, I can see the soul
> of
> > a subject just as easily in Steve McCurry's hypnotic colour portraits as
> in
> > Jane Bown's equally hypnotic monochromatic ones.
> >
> > I do both, and I enjoy doing both, but colour is my basic medium, and B&W
> > is an ancillary medium. By the way, colour is not easy - I spend more
> time
> > post processing my colour photographs than I do my B&W ones.  When I
> cannot
> > get the colour right, I convert to B&W - to me that is an easy option!
> >
> > This is not to belittle anybody, or any other opinion, but I have just
> > stated what MY views are on this subject.
> >
> > Cheers
> > Jayanand
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Nov 8, 2014 at 10:22 AM, RicCarter <ric at cartersxrd.net> wrote:
> >
> > > I have finally reached this conclusion:
> > >
> > > There is no more bullshit photographic question than "Which is more
> > > [insert whatever term you like here], black & white or color?"
> > >
> > > Very quickly, it descends into "Real photographers shoot black &
> white,"
> > > which I have now come to regard as a personal insult.
> > >
> > > Each of us has our own preferences. None of them is founded in anything
> > > other than opinion and personal taste.
> > >
> > > I'll do a little self examination to investigate if I do color because
> it
> > > is "easy."
> > >
> > > Jay, who himself asked the original question, is an excellent street
> > > shooter and uses mostly color. The world is full of excellent color
> > street
> > > photography. Is B&W the "fashion" of the field is a different question.
> > >
> > > You trying to stir up something, Jay? ;^)
> > >
> > > Sorry to be grumpy. I'll now try to go back to remaining quiet when
> color
> > > or black & white questions arise here.
> > >
> > > Ric Carter
> > > www.CartersXRd.net
> > > http://www.facebook.com/ric.carter
> > >
> > > “When you don’t shoot color, you don’t have to worry about color.” —
> Jay
> > > Hunter
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Leica Users Group.
> > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Tina Manley
> www.tinamanley.com
> tina-manley.artistwebsites.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>



-- 
Regards,

Sonny
http://sonc.com/look/
Natchitoches, Louisiana
1714
Oldest Permanent Settlement in the Louisiana Purchase

USA