Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/10/12

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Subject: [Leica] Black and White
From: pklein at 2alpha.net (Peter Klein)
Date: Wed Oct 12 13:41:30 2005

Very good points, Clayton.

Food for thought.  Does B&W speak to us "traditionalists" in ways that it 
simply doesn't to younger people without a background in taking or viewing 
B&W?  Is there something universal about B&W that can be learned quickly by 
an uninitiated viewer?  Or does one have to have some background or 
training in it before one truly gets it?

Case in point.  When Ted Turner "colorized" all those classic B&W movies 
for rebroadcast, I don't think he did it just to stick it to the 
traditionalists.  I suspect he made a business decision, based on either a 
hunch or some data.  He bet that colorizing the films would bring him more 
viewers than it lost him, especially in that sacred teenage/young adult 
demographic.  I suspect most people here would consider "The Maltese 
Falcon" in color sacreligious.  But maybe Mr. Turner had a point.  (I'm not 
talking about the *quality* of the colorization, only the perceived need to 
do it at all).

I'm 51 (for another month anyway!!).  When I was a little kid, B&W pictures 
were the norm.  Color was special.  This gradually changed, but the old 
aesthetic held, particularly in arty circles.  Someone thirtyish or younger 
would have grown up with a very different photographic grounding, unless 
they were specifically interested in the medium, or hung out it arty 
circles.  :-)

--Peter

At 11:01 AM 10/12/2005 -0700, Clayton wrote:
>I think perhaps BD came close, that B&W is Documentary, but I'd think
>that in this case the degree of intimacy and comfort in the photos
>suggests that the color set is more akin to perhaps Karen's idea of
>photoethnography than to it is to tourism.  The color sense in the
>pictures isn't secondary, it's an intrinsic part of the indigenous
>culture and mindspace.
>
>It's not surprising that of the LUG would go for B&W, though; with
>the possible exception of Kyle we're all to one degree or another
>traditionalists and this is a classic execution of traditional B&W
>subject matter.


Replies: Reply from bdcolen at comcast.net (B. D. Colen) ([Leica] Black and White)
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