Backyard Memories
Black and white photography is neither inferior or superior to color photography. Each has its merits. However, black and white photography allows the photographer to explore form and light in ways that color prevents or obscures.
A particular quality of the black and white photograph is its ability to immediately confer an aura of nostalgia on its subject—to remove it from and lock it in time, principally by the reduction of local color to a range of grays. The absence of full color eliminates the emotional shading that color brings.
More so than its color counterpart, the black and white photograph is an artifact to be read. Its appeal is to the intellect first and the subject is to be discovered through a reading of the tones, lines, textures, shapes and voids in the picture but without the slippery and burdened emotional associations of color.
In our age of increasing attention deficits the color photograph prevails. Color is everywhere—even for the physically or perceptually color-blind. It soothes, titillates, excites and masks. This extension of color into every facet of our media saturated existence blurs the boundaries between what is real and what we perceive as real. However, the black and white image announces it separateness, its artificiality, and thereby makes itself something other, something removed from the way we see the world outside the rectangle—something to contemplate.
The color photograph appeals directly to the emotions—to the mostly unconscious color associations in the viewers mind. It bypasses the intellect. And no matter what the putative subject of the color photograph may be, its color palette will elicit an immediate visceral response. In this way the color photograph can be insidious. Likewise, it is often a reiteration of the obvious—a pretty packaging of the banal and vacuous.
The picture above was taken in the early 1950s. It shows me in the arms of Nick—one of my step-fathers. My memories of him are few. He and my mother were divorced soon after this picture was taken and I did not live with either of them. I lived with my great-grandmother.
I saw Nick only a few times yet this picture confirms the memories I have of him—as someone I liked, and who liked me. He died several years ago. I never saw him after the late 1950s, but I still have this picture, with its off center geometry—with the two of us looking out to the unknown. And with it I can look back at us wondering what was? There we are in that rectangle united, removed from time and worry, composed and recorded for all time in black and white forever.
© Michael Maurer Smith 2009
This photograph makes me smile — and it breaks my heart. Or maybe its your words that break my heart.
I think sometimes black and white clarifies the images. I’ve recently been playing with b/w conversion of some of my color shots. And boy, you see differently when the color shifts. Suddenly, the distraction is gone. It isn’t always better (sometimes yes, sometimes no), but it’s always different. A different feel, a different mood, a different energy. This is a most thoughtful post.
But it still makes me sad.
It is always instructive to convert a color image to black and white. Doing so reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the picture’s design (it’s armature or skeletal structure).
Color of course, has many strengths. However, color alone is seldom enough to save a picture that lacks good design—the “geometry” of the picture that Bresson talked about.
There are those subjects, moods in particular, that demand a color component to more fully convey their message. The problem is that too many photographers rely on color to compensate for poor design and composition. Working in black and white really helps the photographer understand such things as positive and negative space, size contrasts, the tension created by placement of the horizon line etc.
As I read this, I was remembering my discovery that processing programs could convert my photos to black and white or sepia. I was astonished how different the “feel” of some photos could be.
This is such an interesting statement: “More so than its color counterpart, the black and white photograph is an artifact to be read.” Not only does it make me ponder the existence of images as text, it raises some questions about the nature of color and printed text.
You use black text here in your blog. I use a single colored text that coordinates with my blog design. But I’ve noticed blogs that use multi-colored text, primary colors or novelties like fluorescent text affect me quite differently. Sometimes they’re visually difficult to read, but sometimes they feel boring, one-dimensional or vapid before I’ve even begun to read.
Just as photographers may rely on color to compensate for poor design and composition, it may be that writers/bloggers, too, use color to compensate for lack of content, creativity and thoughtfulness.