I posed a question the other day: why is it that although the world is in color, black and white photos look more realistic? I’ve actually thought about this for quite some time. I have to say that I am a fan of color in my life. For example, when my husband and I went to Costa Rica, we loved all the vibrant colors so much that we returned home and painted our entire downstairs with lime green, orange, vibrant blues, yellow-gold. They are happy colors – we feel happy looking at them.
But in photography, black and white perversely seems more real. I say perversely because besides the implied contradiction, I always think of Calvin and Hobbes:
Calvin: Dad, how come old photographs are always black and white? Didn’t they have color film back then?
Dad: Sure they did. In fact, those old photographs are in color. It’s just the world was black and white then.
Calvin: Really?
Dad: Yep. The world didn’t turn color until sometime in the 1930s, and it was pretty grainy color for a while, too.
Calvin: That’s really weird.
Dad: Well, truth is stranger than fiction.
Calvin: But then why are old paintings in color?! If their world was black and white, wouldn’t artists have painted it that way?
Dad: Not necessarily. A lot of great artists were insane.
Calvin: But… but how could they have painted in color anyway? Wouldn’t their paints have been shades of gray back then?
Dad: Of course, but they turned colors like everything else did in the ’30s.
Calvin: So why didn’t old black and white photos turn color too?
Dad: Because they were color pictures of black and white, remember?
Calvin: The world is a complicated place, Hobbes.
Hobbes: Whenever it seems that way, I take a nap in a tree and wait for dinner.
So here’s the Costa Rica picture in black and white:
We miss the vibrant colors but the picture is still interesting. The shadows are there and the texture in the plant leaves is even more pronounced. So maybe black and white gets rid of all the extraneous “noise” and leaves you with the bare bones of the image, although you lose the translucence of the leaves.
Maybe there is no real answer and the question is spurious, because why should one be better than another? I do think there’s a point, however, to cutting out the “noise.” In a complicated image, there is so much competing for your attention. The following picture is from an exhibit of Dale Chihuly glass. Chihuly is a master and color is essential to his art. However -
without the distraction of the color, beautiful as it is…
We can better appreciate the shape, form, the arc of the glass leaf over the boy’s head without the distraction of the colored glass in front of his body, plus, the way the photo trails off the page is more subtle but at the same time more dramatic.
What do you think? Perhaps a question that needs no answer, but it’s still fun and instructive to look and analyze.
This is a Roman bath in Pompeii. I was so excited to see the light coming in from the ceiling portal, focusing on the frigidarium, but I think this photo, with the dramatic lighting, looks much better and more realistic in black and white. I notice the beam from the light source in the center more quickly and the almost-parallel alignment of the beams.
So far, I think black and white is coming out pretty well. I’ll put in one more set and do some more tomorrow.
Times Square at night. The taxi speeding by – the essence of New York. I love this picture (Remember in one of the posts we mentioned that if a photo is blurry it does not immediately discount the picture as a bad one?).
It’s still a nice photo in black and white, but for me, this is one place where color really does count. Razzle-dazzle is important to Times Square, and since it’s already nighttime, without color we loose the effectiveness of the neon.
So this is just a little food for thought in case you’ve ever considered the conundrum of black and white seeming more realistic when representing a world that’s in color.
Part two to follow.
