Re: [Leica] b&w, color of the soul (was: Old colour film stock and back to pictures.)

[D Khong <dkhong@pacific.net.sg>]

>The case for b&w is very interesting. I would like to contradict it a
>little: I find b&w is in danger of becoming a gimmick, a little like the
>overusage of polarizers in outdoor photography in the eighties or of
>soft filters in the seventies.
<snip>
>
>Friendly regards
>Alan
>Brussels-Belgium.

I shoot in both B&W and colour.  Over the years, I have found to my
disappointment that my colour photographs are fading.  So I thought it was
simply a matter of getting the lab to reprint more pics from my well kept
colour negatives.  Lo and behold, the reprints showed considerable colour
shift and the appeareance is far from the original.  A yellow cast is
obvious in almost all my reprints.  These are from negs just 4 years old!!

On the other hand my B&W prints, which were printed with the most humble of
my high school enlarger and its three element lens (three decades ago) and
developed in whatever chemicals which a schoolboy at that time could afford
to buy, are still looking good and will probably look good for the next
umpteen years.  They are likely to outlive me.

To me, colour pics are for the moment and B&W pics are for posterity.  For
this reason alone, I am taking more and more B&W pictures.     Many people
in my cohort would have no pictorial record of their wedding day very soon
because we thought at that time that colour was permanent.  **My advice to
those intending to get married is:  Make sure you get some B&W shots in
addition to colour ones!**  

B&W is in no danger of becoming a gimmick.  I wonder what the market share
would be like if neighbourhood labs offered B&W processing at the same
price as colour.  I would not be surprised if the whole scenario comes
round one full circle.

Dan Khong