I have been thinking and writing a lot recently about my take on the differences between colour and black and white image making. This has touched on several different influences and avoided a few others, but today I stumbled across the one truly important matter or segregation between the two forms.
Emotional response.
Our response to an image is often formed quickly and draws on innate pre-conceptions and feelings we use every day to make decisions. Within seconds we decide on the emotional “flavour” of an image when forming the basis of our response to it. We can (and ideally should) find something deeper in the image, but often our first impulses form our lasting opinion of the work.
The effect of colour is immediate, but sometimes shallow. It is often the foundation stone of an image, setting the scene before any other elements are recognised and can often be the only element of measure.
Effectively a mono tonal image, blue instantly conjures up thoughts or early mornings, deep shade and cold. In actual fact this was a warm morning, but it was early and in the shade.
Take colour out and you have a more “bare bones”, modest and plain image, relying on the next level in of information to help you form an opinion. It is of course possible to tone a mono image or even to create a mono tonal colour image, but without strong application of colour, the image is forced to open up. To bear all.
Colour has it’s place in our work, especially if strong and immediate emotional responses are needed, but it may also disguise a deeper message, or even the lack of one.
Colour can be used for a cheap shot, often unintentionally, as we have evolved to respond to it, so we take a shot, but our mistake was to follow through with an otherwise weak image, taken based on this response. This surface trigger is one I am slave of and (I think) this is where my problem lays.
Each of the images below works for me on some level in black and white and colour.
The sets as I see/feel them;
1) Warm summer evening vs brilliant winter day.
2) Deep shade in warm weather and the glasses dominate vs anytime, anywhere, but the face dominates.
3) Late afternoon light, yellow and orange objects dominate (and hold it together) vs anytime, wall textures and contrast dominate.
Which ones push my buttons? Unfortunately for me I cannot easily choose. Part of this may be a natural tendency to shoot for colour, weakening my mono conversions, or most likely, an in ability to break from that very knee-jerk response I am discovering in myself. For my wife, it was much the same colour/mono/colour, but she did say that generally she would prefer a mono image hanging on the wall.
Both of the wall studies have a pleasing gentleness due to their colour, but glow more and display stronger graphic elements in mono. The portrait is a little mysterious in colour, but adopts better balance in mono.
Conversely, the basic blandness of a world without colour can be emotionally draining. You must switch your way of seeing to an unnatural method, ignoring colour and looking only for form and content. We evolved responding to colour, but we also evolved to be better than just our surface instincts.
To combat this, somewhat ironically, we can add back some colour as a mood trigger. Does this add to a stronger image or revert it to a cheap trick, colour hit?
Below are 4 different takes on the mono image in the set above.
The first has darkroom style manipulations (the darkened glasses, added grain and vignetting).
The second is tones for warmth. The toning was applied with the shadows slider in Lightroom, which is similar to toning paper.
The third image is tones with a colder blue tone, again to the shadows mostly.
The last is “split” toned, which is where Selenium and Sepia were used, one effecting the highlights with a warm tone and one the shadows with a cool, reddish-purple tone. A hazardous and time consuming technique, but uniquely powerful when perfected.
So. Is the path to use black and white and all the tricks traditionally (and in mimicry of tradition) used to enhance it?