[Leica] Black and White

[frank.dernie at btinternet.com (FRANK DERNIE)]

Well Peter I am 55 and as soon as could afford colour
I changed from B&W. I have had a darkroom at home from
the 60s until earlier this year when I finally
accepted that I would never use it again and
dismantled it. I have not had the heart to sell
anything though. I made Cibachrome (later Ilfochrome)
prints from, mainly, Kodachrome 64 slides.
I was never that fond of shooting in B&W myself. I
have  appreciated the B&W photography of others but
always been disatisfied by my own.
I generally prepher colour photographs. For a B&W shot
to be compelling for me it has to have something very
special about it to compensate for that that has been
lost when its colour was stolen.
Not a conventional opinion I know but there we are.
I much prefer Tina's Guatemala pictures in colour.
Frank

--- Peter Klein <pklein@2alpha.net> wrote:

> 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.
> 
> 
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