Blog Post #12

Black & White or Colour ?

So the answer to that question is simple. In my book, B&W wins every day. End of Blog article…..

Seriously though, this is a debate that has raged in photography circles since colour film medium became readily available. Before then there was no option. Although colour photography was well on the scene before I picked up a camera I have always been drawn to black and white photography. It may be because I read a lot of books containing photographs of the great documentary photographers like Cartier-Bresson, Erwitt and more recently Don McCullin. It may also be because b&w was accessible and being able to control the developing and printing processes was important to me. I did dabble in colour processing in the 80s but never got on with it. It tried the Cibachrome and Ektaflex processes as well as conventional methods but there was always one underlying problem with colour photography that I can still see to this day. Our eyes are all different and see colours in different ways. Time, temperature, chemical make-up and processing times are more critical in colour processing too so it doesn’t take much for colour casts to be introduced to the print or transparency. Some of us may see the colour cast, some may not. We are not all calibrated to a natural “nominal” and as such our perception of colours can vary up and down the colour spectrum. In the digital world we can calibrate our cameras and display screens but my acceptable may not be yours.

One advantage of the digital image is it can be captured in different formats. Most people will be familiar with the JPEG (or JPG) file format. The JPEG or Joint Photographics Experts Group file format is a universal format for digital images or files. If an image is recorded in JPEG then the camera will do some compressing and other modifications to give a satisfactory image. This can be a quick and cheerful way of recording something but it also restricts the limit of post processing that can be done. For the vast majority of people JPEG is satisfactory and they probably dont even know other formats are available.

In digital photography this is where “Raw” image files come in. Raw is basically what it says, its not an acronym. It is the raw data captured by the camera sensor, a bit like a negative in the film world. Its what the camera recorded onto the sensor and has not been compressed or changed in any way. The recorded image is in colour and as such contains a lot of information so these Raw files tend to be larger than JPEGs. The big advantage of the Raw file is that it is non-destructive and can be converted and processed as a black and white image in post processing software like Adobe Lightroom, without erasing the original Raw data.

I shoot in Raw all the time because I know my photographs will be post processed in Lightroom, rather like when I used manipulate negative images in my darkroom. Because of my preference for b&w images this gives me the flexibility I need to present my photographs in the way I want.

I would only use colour if the subject or scene required it for some aesthetic reason. My thought process is as follows.

We see the world in colour, but when it comes to colour photography we need to consider what part that colour will play in the image. It could be the quality or tone of the light or a specific element that links the colours. It could be that colour is needed to convey a situation that couldn’t be achieved in b&w. To my eye colour photographs usually contain an element or elements that can be distracting. It’s as if when I look at the image the dominant colours hit me before the subject does and that can be distracting. I do shoot some images in colour but there needs to be a reason for it.

In this image for example, black and white would not really have worked as the key elements of the image are the colours the lady is wearing and her hair. It would look a bit flat in B&W.

In this image of the poppy seller, as well as capturing the scene, the use of colour has been employed to highlight the repetition of red in both the sellers collection box and the manequin’s handbag.

When it comes to b&w photography, as I mentioned before, I am more comfortable and feel more in control. In my opinion b&w can convey textures, atmosphere and contrast in a way that colour cannot. I find that b&w is great for street photography and helps me create the photographs I want to make. The viewer knows that the image is in black and white for a reason, the colours can be filled in by their brain. I believe that a high quality black and white photograph will always trump a colour one. When I am out and about taking photographs I tend to look at things in black and white and imagine how the finished image will look. Having taken a photograph I start to see in my mind how it will be processed even although I see it in my viewfinder in colour. My camera can switch the viewfinder view to black and white and save the images as black and white JPEGs in various film effects but I haven’t experimented with that yet. I will stick with Raw format for the time being and process my images to black and white in Lightroom and Silver FX.

In the words of photographer Ted Grant:

“When we photograph people in colour we are photographing their clothes. When we photograph people in black and white we are photographing their soul”

Footnote: Just to let you know I have started a new Gallery in my Street Photography Portfolio entitled “Street Photography 2021” and it can be found at this location . I will add to it as the year progresses.

Thank you for reading this blog post. I’m sorry but I don’t include a comments or “Like/Dislike” button. If you want to contact me you can do so by using the “Contact Me” facility in the website header.

Peter Degnan