Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2016/03/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Thank you, Jim! ?howard > On Mar 19, 2016, at 9:54 PM, Jim Nichols <jhnichols at lighttube.net> > wrote: > > Howard, > > I think your B&W photos do a great job of capturing the splendor and > character of a past age. The darker images are impressive and appropriate. > > Hospitalitas is beautiful! > > Jim Nichols > Tullahoma, TN USA > > On 3/19/2016 7:39 PM, Howard Ritter wrote: >> I?ve always been drawn to B&W photos, both to make them and to appreciate >> them. All photographers who aren't color blind have had the experience of >> wondering whether an image would look better in color or in B&W, probably >> for many shared reasons and for some idiosyncratic ones as well. The >> common experience is to look at two versions of a photo and to decide >> that the B&W looks better than the color, or not, but I can?t recall ever >> thinking that only the B&W version was pleasing and worthwhile to look >> at. Why should draining the color out of an unremarkable image make >> looking at it worthwhile? If a photograph is a representation of reality >> seen from one point in space, looking in one direction, at one instant in >> time, what is it that causes removing an aspect of reality?color?to >> render the image more worthwhile, or even moreso, to render the B&W >> version worthwhile when the color one was not? For me, in photos that are >> better in B&W, I think it?s the removal of color as a distraction from >> the dynamic or the tension of the tableau caught in the image, and the >> way this emphasis involves the viewer more intimately in the story. >> Nothing original in that analysis, of course, but just how powerful this >> effect can be was just brought home to me by some recent B&W photos I >> made. >> >> Thinking about my affinity for B&W (considerably stimulated by Lluis?s >> work with the MM and by Jim Shulman?s, Chris Crawford?s, and others' film >> work) and how I?d gotten largely away from it with the advent of digital, >> I decided to trade up to an MM when Leica made me the offer for my >> sensor-corroded M9. >> >> Cynthia and I, as new residents of North Carolina, this week made the >> obligatory pilgrimage to Biltmore, the 19th-century pile that George >> Vanderbilt built at Asheville with his grandfather?s fortune. No >> McMansion, but a bona fide one. Huge, complex, with massive stonework, >> endless features and surprises, and more of everything (except a darkroom >> and an observatory) than anyone would ever need, it would be a prime >> venue for Victorian-themed dinner mysteries, Halloween parties, and all >> manner of creepy doings, as well as a prime candidate for the kind of >> decrepitude that follows with being made for a vastly different era and >> vastly greater fortunes, as seen in British grand manor houses that >> haven?t been rescued by the Trust. Instead, it?s become the nidus of a >> vast entrepreneurial project, with scandalous admission fees, season >> passes (!), themed tours, gift shops, a cafe and a lunch restaurant, a >> winery, theme-faithful hostelries, etc. I concede that it?s worth a day?s >> visit. >> >> I took the MM along and was pleased to find that a number of features of >> the house made for B&W photos that I found quite pleasing, many of which >> would be quite ordinary and not worth posting to the Gallery had they >> been in color. For the most part, these images are dark ones that convey >> a sense of vague menace or something sinister glimpsed in a reflection. >> The copper pots and pans are not an exception to this, although I think >> they?d have looked good in color. >> >> Biltmore and personal effects. A guidebook and, inexplicably, a pair of >> eyeglasses left at a vista point. >> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/Biltmore+and+personal+effects.jpg.html >> >> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/Biltmore+and+personal+effects.jpg.html> >> >> Fountain. In the wall at the base of the south slope. >> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/Fountain.jpg.html?g2_fromNavId=x4b127eeb >> >> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/Fountain.jpg.html?g2_fromNavId=x4b127eeb> >> >> Copper Pots. The kitchen's originals, having been used to prepare dishes >> for every kind of person from heads of state to humble servants. >> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/CopperPots.jpg.html >> >> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/CopperPots.jpg.html> >> >> Vanderbilt. George himself, a bibliophile, who, judging from the >> portraits in the house, liked to pose with his left hand over his upper >> right chest. >> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/Vanderbilt.jpg.html >> >> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/Vanderbilt.jpg.html> >> >> Gun Room. Lots of shotgun hunting on the grounds back in the day. >> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/GunRoom.jpg.html >> >> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/GunRoom.jpg.html> >> >> Hospitalitas. Stained glass at the wine shop. >> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/Hospitalitas.jpg.html >> >> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/Hospitalitas.jpg.html> >> >> Wine Library. In the catacombs beneath the winery, a former dairy barn >> (??). A rivulet of an unknown fluid emerging from the dark depths? >> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/WineLibrary.jpg.html >> >> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/hlritter/For+Gallery_001/WineLibrary.jpg.html> >> >> C&C appreciated. >> >> ?howard >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Leica Users Group. >> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >> > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information