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Post by kiev4a on May 31, 2006 9:34:17 GMT -5
I'm glad an area has been created for black and white. Although in recent years I have shot a lot of color, the vast majority of pictures I have taken over the past half century have been black and white. I have noticed in the past few years a renewed interest in black and white photography. What is most encouraging is that much of that interest seems to be among younger folks who are "discovering" the old-new meduim. Color photos are great but there are times when color can be detrimental to a photo. It can draw the viewer's eye away from "meat" of the picture. I also believe one can learn more about composition shooting in black and white as you can't depend on color to carry the photo. You have to work harder to produce a photo that really grabs a viewer. Digital is taking over the modern photography market. One of the beauties of black and white is that even after stores start shutting down their film processors, one can continue to shoot and develop B&W film with only minimal training. Plus, it is easier to manufacture than color film. I suspect black and white film will outlive color in the analog world. Let's see what you've got!  My father, operating a Linotype at his weekly newspaper, shortly befor his retirement in 1968. |
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Post by GeneW on May 31, 2006 12:29:35 GMT -5
I love B&W photography. It's what attracted me to photography in the first place, and it's still my first love. Nothing against colour, mind, but B&W is what I like best. Most of my 135 and 120 shooting is B&W film, and I find myself converting a surprising number of digital shots to B&W as well. Nice addition! Here are some recent snaps (all converted from C-41 film): Starbucks, Early Morning (Olympus Stylus Epic, Fuji Superia 400)  Footprints in Snow (Pentax Zoom-90 WR, Kodak Gold 200)  Tire Tracks (Pentax Zoom-90 WR, Kodak Gold 200)  All taken last Feb but I only recently got them developed and scanned. Gene |
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Post by kiev4a on May 31, 2006 12:54:19 GMT -5
Gene:
I like the sand shots. An excellent example of a situation where color would detract.
The only 120 I shoot is B&W. Too hard to get color processed. I've seldom tried shooting color and converting to Black and White. I think it's a mental thing. When I have color in a camera I "think" in color. When B&W film is loaded I think in shades or gray.
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Post by kiev4a on May 31, 2006 16:16:43 GMT -5
Nice shot. Great gray tones. The most often made mistake with B@W is people over expose and/or overdevelop and the middle tones block up and become white.
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wclavey
Contributing Member
Posts: 35
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Post by wclavey on Jun 5, 2006 9:31:48 GMT -5
The only 120 I shoot is B&W. Too hard to get color processed. I've seldom tried shooting color and converting to Black and White. I think it's a mental thing. When I have color in a camera I "think" in color. When B&W film is loaded I think in shades or gray. This is the same way I felt for a long time, but I did a work assignment in London for a year and took with me my Anso Special 4.5 folder. I bought Astia E-6 film and brought it all back home to be processed. I was so impressed with how good 6x6 transparencies look that I went out and bought another Mamiya TLR body to use with my existing lenses so that I could keep B&W in one body and slide film in the other. I can see where my 40+ years of B&W photography shows more tendency to compositions based on texture, contrast, form, etc. - - all stemming from B&W, but I can also now see that there is a place for thinking and seeing in color. |
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Post by kiev4a on Jun 5, 2006 10:07:03 GMT -5
There certainly is a place for black and white and color. But I like to use a similar analogy from writing, although I'm drifting OT a little.
I started in journalism back in the days when everything was typed on typewriters. If you put an important paragraph too far down in the story you had to physically cut it out of the copy and glue it in the appropriate position--where the term "cut and paste" originated. (The rubber cement fumes could give you a real buzz). Because cutting and pasting was a hassle, writers tended to do a better job of mentally organizing their stories in their heads before putting anything on paper. I think that helped me be a better writer.
I look at the blogs on today's internet and I see people writing stream of consciousness --very little organization to their thoughts, even though electronic cutting and pasting is easy. Technology can be a boon or a bain.
I don't claim to be a "great" photographer. But I do think my early training shooting black and white. with manual focus and manual film advance allows me to focus more on the content of the picture. Even in the pre-digital days I shot less film on a photo assignment than my peers who were raised with motor drives, autoexposure and autofocus and seemed to believe if you push the shutter release often enough you were bound to get at least on usable photo. This tendency has increased with digital a huge memory cards.
There ain't no discipline, anymore.
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PeterW
Lifetime Member
Member has Passed
Posts: 3,804
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Post by PeterW on Jun 5, 2006 12:58:27 GMT -5
I agree absolutely, Wayne.
When I was training to be a journalist the Editor used to make everyone phone in to the news desk and dictate the story to a copy taker, even if you were only half a mile away with ample time to deadline. You were expected to get things sorted out in your head before you started dictating. If you didn't, then when you got back the Editor would say something like: "Um, not a bad story, but next time don't give the subs so much work to do!" It certainly taught me to sort things out in my mind first and, I hope, made me a better writer.
With news photographs I can see a useful place for quick-fire motor drives in, for example, shots of a speaker or a celebrity where there's always the chance of the person blinking just as you shoot, or the suddden head turn or wave of a hand that hides the face. But a good photographer should anticipate, and three shots in quick fire should be ample. I've seen some experienced news photogs fire three shots in a couple of seconds with lever wind before they were jostled out of the way by a competitor.
Same thing with sports With anticipation and a knowledge of the sport three quick-fires should be ample. Even so there have been some wonderfully anticipated sports shots in the past, even going back to the days of once-only-shot plate cameras, but photographers had to learn their skills then!
For amateur work, again I can see a usefulness for motor drives for subjects like kids at play where they move so fast! and for wild life shots of shy or fast-moving creatures, but generally speaking most of us have ample time to prepare, visualise and take the shot.
Yet I see so much 'squirting about' nowadays with the hope, as you say, that one picture out of the lot is going to be good.
I'm just waiting see a brutally honest jobs-vacant advert in a local newspaper for a photographer (oh, sorry, I believe they call them 'camera operators' now) which says:
"Join our dedicated team! We have a vacancy for a news and features camera operator. Long unsocial hours and low pay, but lots of job satisfaction. Equipment supplied. A comprehensive one-day training course will be given to complete novices. Expensive skilled photographers need not apply"!!!
Peter
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Post by John Parry on Jun 5, 2006 14:05:04 GMT -5
On a recent roll, I had eleven shots of bats emerging from my neighbour's gable end. Not a single bat on any of them. Does that count as 'squirting'? I'll answer my own question - yes it does!
Gene's A620 is looking better and better. I could blast away all night then!
Regards - John
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Post by GeneW on Jun 7, 2006 8:50:42 GMT -5
Gene's A620 is looking better and better. I could blast away all night then! John, that's certainly one of the great things about digital -- you can just blast away. Even the little A620 has a 'continuous mode' where you simply hold down the trigger ... er shutter release ... and it keeps firing rapidly (like a motor drive). BTW, it appears as if the A620 is about to be phased out for a newer model, so look for sale prices. Gene |
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Post by unclebill on Jun 18, 2006 19:57:29 GMT -5
Amen!
I started developing my own black and white negatives and I find it very satisfying. I am still relatively young, I find younger kids are really into the black and white lab work while older photographers are keen to get rid of their analog camera gear and go digital, present company excluded. I do have one story, I volunteered with the APUG conference back in May. On the street photography, the young kids all of 19, 21 23 etc had Minolta SRT's, Pentax MX's and Canon A1's, I was packing my Leica M3, we had a bunch of guys show up with digital SLR's, considering the conference was focused on film photography, I thought that bit of behavior was brave if not slightly suicidal.
I shoot about 80% black and white but I am not a snob about it. I like shooting slide and C-41 as well.
Bill
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Post by Microdad on Jun 30, 2006 12:38:08 GMT -5
B&W was what I started photography with and have obsessed with it since. I had a Brownie Target 616 my dad gave me and I made contact prints from the negatives in my bedroom/darkroom when I was about 10. This is a shot of my son; Minolta Autocord using Kodak Tmax, 1/30, f/8  |
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Post by kamera on Jul 5, 2006 15:16:51 GMT -5
I imagine we all started out 'learning' with b&w film. It never went away over the years, but seemed to decline in popularity except for the diehards.
It definately is coming back into its own power nowadays...simple digital darkroom printing of such and just as an interest in nonphotos. eg., a lot of people seem to want their wedding pics in b&w now.
B&W can be so much more dramatic and tell a story better in many instances than color.
Ron Head
Kalamazoo, MI
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