Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/10/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Seriously for a change these black and whites by Tina were knocked out rather quickly and don't match up to the quality you normally see of all her other work like in four different websites. (a nice thing) I think one is better off doing such things, and this is often done, in color. Black and white though just like in the real darkroom is about 6 times more difficult than color. In color just about anything looks good. In black and white just about anything looks bad. Black and white needs to be tweaked big time as (is?) a contrast problem mainly but also density and that's the only way the info comes across. In color things easier separate just by the sheer fact that they are different colors. The colors can be way off and we just don't care. It's all good. (a slight exaggeration) I think it's an unfair comparison. Should Tina (sorry about talking about you in the second person) tweak theses shots and make them Eugene-Smith-Like in pixels so they jump out at you fully separated with a nice black the color would pale in comparison as it normally usually does 99.9% of the time. Become just a "tint" of themselves! That's my personal opinion. Except that I'm right. When I set up a portfolio book with the plastic pages or even a stack of prints I put the color first became you don't want them following the black and white. They then look like dumb snapshots blown up a bit. Show them at first and they look just fine but then at the end you see the black and white and gee it just gets better and better. That's my strategy. I read it in "The Art of War". Few people know Sun Tzu was a darkroom affectionado! They'd set up a tent when they were in the field and ..... HBO Series character, Tony Soprano: "Been reading that-- that book you told me about. You know, The Art of War by Sun Tzu. I mean here's this guy, a Chinese general, wrote this thing 2400 years ago, and most of it still applies today! Balk the enemy's power. Force him to reveal himself. You know most of the guys that I know, they read Prince Machiavelli, and I had Carmela go and get the Cliff Notes once and -- he's okay. But this book is much better about strategy." Mark Rabiner Photography Portland Oregon http://rabinergroup.com/