[Leica] There is more to light than how bright it is...

[philippe.orlent at pandora.be (Philippe Orlent)]

IMO it's very simple: shooting/composing strong colour images is much harder
than B&W. It's another parameter that makes it more difficult to "guide the
eye" of the spectator.

> From: "B. D. Colen" <bdcolen@earthlink.net>
> Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug@leica-users.org>
> Date: Thu, 6 May 2004 20:20:44 -0400
> To: "'Leica Users Group'" <lug@leica-users.org>
> Subject: RE: [Leica] There is more to light than how bright it is...
> 
> Fascinating.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lug-bounces+bdcolen=earthlink.net@leica-users.org
> [mailto:lug-bounces+bdcolen=earthlink.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
> Tim Atherton
> Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 7:52 PM
> To: Leica Users Group
> Subject: RE: [Leica] There is more to light than how bright it is...
> 
> 
> 
>> Yes, it's true that had color film been invented first, we would
>> probably not have monochrome film - or if we had it, it would simply
>> be a novelty. But that's irrelevant, because black and white film was
>> invented first, and black and white iconic images are what we
>> ultimately judge all photography against.
>> 
>> Certainly there are some subjects that are inherently "color"
>> subjects. But there are many, many that are not. Imagine Salgado's
>> work in color...Imagine Eugene Smith's...
> 
> Recently I've been feeling my understanding of b&w and colour in
> photography to be somewhat unsatisfactory and superficial - based as it
> was one the clothes/soul analogy.
> 
> I read a wonderful little book called "Chromophobia" about the fear of
> colour in the history/practice of art and it certainly got me thinking
> 
> It has caused me to examine much more about how I work (or can work) in
> colour.
> 
> The basic thesis is that in western art there has been a prejudice
> towards and fear of colour. He follows a historic thread through on
> this. The Soul/Cloths statement is in a direct line that goes back to
> Plato's prejudices on this. The primacy of line and form over colour,
> colour being "merely" cosmetic or surface. The child who is told in
> Kindergarten they must "colour in between the lines" (interestingly my
> wife's mother - who was an artist in her own right, banned colour in the
> lines colouring books from the home when she was growing up...), the
> hierarchies of colours in art text books and colour theory in art
> education over the last 150+ years, How the human, earthy colours of
> Rembrandt are much more acceptable than the gaudy, sensual, tempting
> colours of the East, Corbusiers "banishment" of colour after an
> experience at the Parthenon (having been seduced by colour in the
> Orient) and more - and how in much art (and certainly in photography)
> there is what amounts to a fear of colour - which is best kept under
> control of line and form (or better still, black and white) - what the
> author describes as a fear of corruption or contamination through colour
> - which lurks within much Western cultural thought and art. This is
> apparent in the many and varied attempts to purge colour, either by
> making it the property of some 'foreign body' - the oriental, the
> feminine, the infantile, the vulgar, or the pathological - or by
> relegating it to the realm of the superficial, the supplementary, the
> inessential, or the cosmetic (clothes as opposed to soul)"
> 
> He then goes on to look at how colour is in fact possibly more
> substantial, fundamental and essential, indeed elemental - and in some
> ways much harder to understand and work with.
> 
> As I say, it's a small book, but certainly set me thinking
> 
> tim
> 
> 
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