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B&W RGB Digital: a realized Adams dream or a fix-all.

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
For easy reading, please read my replies in bluetexts
Asher Kelman said:
No, Nicolas, your opinions and those of Dierk are not quite congruent.

As far as I can tell, Dierk has "nothing against dine modern B&W prints".

By contrast, you say
Nicolas Claris said:
Shooting/printing B&W cannot be an easy way to give value to a poor pic, in that case, for me this is a non creative way.
I've said it is not an easy way. Not that it is not good or impossible. Just not easy!
So there's a difference already. You appear to show rather less tolerance and admiration for even shooting B&W, albeit, by necessity today, with a full color camera.
Nope, this is not a question of tolerance! I cannot pretend to have tolerance or not. I like or dislike. A bit dfferent.
As far as getting rid of colors at the time of processing, I would argue that if the end result is impressive, artistic, desired, carries emotional weight and presence it still can be a fine picture, rescued from rubbish or not.
I tend to believe that if it has been "thought" prior to be shot/framed it may be. If it has been "thought" afterwards, it looks to me like being crushed to the tree's branch before falling (a french expression, difficult to translate).
Sometimes horrible colors, like the harsh shadows of noon sun need to be overcome. The latter with flash or reflectors or of course a light diffuser, the former by removing hideous distractions by removing the color.this is where, IMHO a true artist will make the difference with a"common" photog like me As I was driving along one street yesterday, almost everywhere I looked, the colors of stores were awful, yet the tones and shapes we interesting. I see nothing wrong with a sepia or platinum hue monochrome.then why not trying the provocative sight?

You are photographing the most beautiful blue and green seas and the skyscapes of God, The wood of the interiors are siennas from Italy. So why would you shoot in B&W?So true, no way! even my work on shadow keeps their beautiful grey colors...

Asher
In short, let's work and think our pics before we press the shutter!
I wish I would never fill that *¨%+£¨%++*! buffer, meaning I take full time to compose.

[edit] adding: and capture the magic of colors
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
In short, let's work and think our pics before we press the shutter!
I wish I would never fill that *¨%+£¨%++*! buffer, meaning I take full time to compose.

[edit] adding: and capture the magic of colors[/QUOTE]


But today, my very good fine French friend, to whom I am devoted, options have expanded.

In the old days, one MADE a picture in the darkroom. That is where one made the print realize the full potential, even more than imagined when the shot was made.

Today, in addition to all that, we have the 2cd opportunity, I claim, to re-press the shutter using our wonderful Eizo monitors where we, again see that wonderful world as if for the first time and can have a fresh intent as easy as we did the first time.

That is my claim!

A new paradigm, never possible to this extent hither to fore!

So rethinking from the beginning in an image processor is no less pure than doing it from a helicopter or looking over the Pacific Ocean at Big Sur.

Asher
 

Anita Saunders

New member
Dierk Haasis said:
B/W is the easy choice to make a dull (or even bad) photo interesting. Dierk
I disagree. A photo needs a lot of interest to make it work in B&W; either strong impact on composition, detail or content - mainly light. With wonderful subjects or lighting (either natural or induced), colour will always detract from it. In fact I believe the opposite to this statement of yours! Colour is used to make a bad photo look interesting! In B&W the light counts much more than a phenomenon of colour.
Dierk Haasis said:
Special effects are another of my pet hates in photography; perhaps it is just because my forming years lay in the 70s but ... seriously starbursts, shines, oversaturation, almost anything added to Photoshop's filter menu is only worth it for graphic designers working on unsubstantial photos trying to create uncontroversial advertising material.
I disagree again :) Put a green filter over a lens for a B&W portrait, or use a fake green filter in photoshop (tweaked carefully of course in channels for a fine balance) and you can make a very strong portrait with the right light, subject and moment. A simple filter effect is much the same as choosing a specific film which used to make the punchy contrast work in the old days.

I don't think B&W is a cover up. I think it enhances and emphasises the focus where it very often should be - as opposed to getting lost in the colour.

velcro10B&W.jpg


ps don't know why the image showed as a link instead of a picture. I hosted the photo on my own space and used the insert image function.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Feisty comments but I agree!

Color can easily wow by simple "raz-ma-taz"!

Each image has to be judged on it's own merits and how you, yourself react to it. Sometimes you may not come to the finest painting culturally prepared. Same with this.

Asher
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Asher
I better go back to school and learn better English.
You misunterstand me completely!
I'm fine with all the ARS (After Raw Shoot), Capture one, DXo, PS have more kilometers on their counter on my computer than a lot on other's.
I know you know I use and love to use derawtizers, they are also apetizers!

BUT
It is much more comfortable to have the vision of your pic before than after.

I've seen you shooting in Bordeaux, bang, bang, bang, bang and I know that from all this shots you'll get the good material to compose beautifull collages.
This is at least one of the ways you use to express your "internal" visions and creativity and I respect that. Hands and hat down!
But please consider when you do photography for living, you better know what you do before you shoot!

Well I become OT, my full of colors Powerbook screen reminds me...

BTW, I'm also curious to know if B&W gurus are using B&W monitors ;-)
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Nicolas,

When shooting an event, I also go bang, bang, bang or faster when things are happening. The kiss, glass breaking, two people going together to hug. I have a goal, the pictures are graded, 5% to 25% are not shown and the images are ready by the next day and delivered each as desired.

In street photography, my camera held by the grip to one side no strap and I shoot again bang bang, but often framing by my guesswork which improves. I sample the street and do it very fast. Or I may hunt with my lens and wait, leaning on a wall, aiming at a corner over the street.

When there's an actor in my set, I have planned the shot. There's a sketch of it. The lights have been tested. The cameras on a tripod, mirror is up and shutter is released by cable.I may only take 4 shots per pose.

So in each case my style, machine gun, or not, framed meticulously or not even captured for sure or not, depends on my goals, vision, plans and inspiration for what's at hand.

Apart from event photography and seriosuly planned out planned fine art pictures, my job on CS2 depends on the nature of the task at hand and what muse visits me! No rules!

Asher

added a r to make "beaking", "breaking"!
 
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nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Nicolas Claris said:
Curious.
I wonder why I can't remember about any artist that have made black & white paints (except abstraction and all kind of drawings of course).
C'mon guys!
nobody to challenge this and put the shame on me?
 

Dierk Haasis

pro member
Guy Tal said:
Sorry, but I take offense to the declarative tone here.

Well, do. The point of this discussion is not to tell anybody about his specific decisions. It's also not one of those ivory tower discussions which seems to have no relation to reality. We are talking, as Asher wrote, about a way to consistently come up with good images. That is, how do we recognise them, how do we recognise what is not so good, what creative choices do we make.

Whatever the good ones say - in this case photographers -, all of them analyse constantly and try to find the right way for any given subject. I thought the illustrations I included made clear why I was quite stern [or declarative]. Your personal decision framed in the words I took exception to [on a purely analytic level], '... if it distracts ...' surely entails much more than just that. It is surely exactly the kind of analysis I advance.

The picture of the tree is a good example for my contention. You have not just taken out the colour, you tweaked it to a certain result, i.e. to concentrate the viewer on the curves of the rock. The tree is just the counterpoint to the theme. Actually you left some colour in by toning the whole thing in a [nostalgic] brown, emoting warmth.

You explicitly state that it took some time and lots of colour photos until you realised what your real subject is.

Still offended?
 

Diane Fields

New member
Dierk Haasis said:
Actually you left some colour in by toning the whole thing in a [nostalgic] brown, emoting warmth.
?

I guess my printing is then outside the realm of b/w--I think 'mono' not black and white. Though I like neutral b/w, I prefer old prints that were platinum, selenium, etc. toned. I do start out with 'intent to process in mono' as I usually set my camera to b/w, red filter, sepia toned so I get some idea of where I'm going as I shoot. I shoot in RAW---and don't include a small jpeg but I'm 'seeing' the possibility as I shoot.

There are many times I don't 'think' in mono---because color is the 'story' so to speak--and I agree with Asher about Nicolas--immersed in color. When I was doing textile art (for many many years), I only thought/saw in color---I dyed, did surface design, intertwined colors to create yet another visually. I was wrapped in color all the time. When I shot my work or others---I, of course, only shot in color.

I'm not sure when I became enamored with mono---because I never did darkroom work. But most of my favorite photographers at least shoot part of the time in mono (not necessarily in neutral b/w), my 2 favorite photography magazines are b/w (Black and White and Lenswork), and I gravitate to mono images in galleries. This is such a subjective decision I don't think I will even offer any discussion on this LOL.

Diane
 

Alain Briot

pro member
Nicolas Claris said:
Curious.
I wonder why I can't remember about any artist that have made black & white paints (except abstraction and all kind of drawings of course).

I can remember a lot of artists --virtually all artists in fact-- that have made pencil drawings, charcoal drawings, or monochrome engravings and lithographs ;-) Who says black and white has to be paint? With photography we only have the option of silver or ink, but with other medium pencil, charcoal, engraving, lithography, etc. are viable options that have been used for millenaries.

It is also important to understand that Black and white is not medium related. Rather, it is a choice made by the artist to not use color. What medium is used in the process is secondary. What is primary is the goal of the artist. Black and white affords the artist an entirely different form of expresion than color does. To place black and white in opposition to color, or as a secondary option when color "fails" in a photograph, is similar to saying that when a painting fails the artist resorts to drawing, or to charcoal or to engraving, etc. The fact is that a drawing can fail just as easily as a painting can, and a black and white version of a poor color photograph can be even worse than the color original.
 
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Mary Bull

New member
Ger Dukes said:
Did anyone check out my image? And can anyone explain why it came up a link even though I used the image tag?

velcro10B&W.jpg
I looked yesterday and saw your interesting b/w portrait image.

I have no idea why the link doesn't work to embed the image. As a test, I copied the link out of Opera's site address field--which turns out to be what you had put in the embed-dialogue window, as seen in a full quote of your post. Got the same "no joy" result as you did, Ger.

Then, I remembered that I had tried the same thing with Flickr, and it wouldn't embed.
At Flickr (and Village Photo) there's a special "embedding" URL.

Perhaps it's that way also at Photo Art Gallery. Have a look around? Try out their
Help--if it has one?

Best wishes,

Mary
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Bev, were you trying to post it in this thread?

If so for now, post the text too. Otherwise it will be a separate thread and I'll move it! Try changing the name of the image to something like "man.jpg". I have found that some images just won;t embed without a name change. Perhpas there is something faulty in the name field we don't see!

The also check that the image is flat. Layers may cause problems.

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Back to you Nicolas, hiding behind the Force De Frappe of France!

Mary, I know was sent to divert attention from your shame in criticizing modern B&W photography, impulsive image desaturators and those with machine gun impulsive trigger fingers!

Further to B&W with choice of media. Part of the reason you haven't seen B&W oil paintings much is that you haven’t yet arrived in Los Angeles!

Obviously, as Alain underlined, for B&W one will choose the best media for the kind of work to express one's vision! Its up to the artist. You don't like it? Tough; don't buy it! There's tons of stuff we don't buy. Lots of prayers we don't listen too. An unsold photograph is something like that and no less valid. Why should we care how the message is written? Isn't that very limiting?

Besides, some artistic choices carry more than the picture itself.

A Durer n___ (abbrev unclothed) as an oil painting would, perhaps, not be as intimate and lack some of the special innate qualities of that medium. It is in fact, a distance that puts from other forms of expression that calls attention to the particular viewpoint of an artist.

All in all, let's not shoot the messenger for how he writes the message. After all it’s the message, its uniqueness, its appeal to your feelings and thoughts that count not the mechanics of building the message. Now having decided I like something, yes, I'm interested as to how the artist arrived at that point. However, that interest is gentle and not declarative!

Asher
 
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Anita Saunders

New member
Mary Bull said:
I looked yesterday and saw your interesting b/w portrait image.

I have no idea why the link doesn't work to embed the image. As a test, I copied the link out of Opera's site address field--which turns out to be what you had put in the embed-dialogue window, as seen in a full quote of your post. Got the same "no joy" result as you did, Ger.

Then, I remembered that I had tried the same thing with Flickr, and it wouldn't embed.
At Flickr (and Village Photo) there's a special "embedding" URL.

Perhaps it's that way also at Photo Art Gallery. Have a look around? Try out their
Help--if it has one?

Best wishes,

Mary
Thanks for your response Mary, but I am 'Photo Art Gallery'. It is my website, I pay for the domain , the server space, I make and upload stuff... it's all me so I don't understand! All I can say is Oooooer......... something is wrong and I don't know what it is :(

ps where did the smilies go?
 

Mary Bull

New member
Ger Dukes said:
Thanks for your response Mary, but I am 'Photo Art Gallery'. It is my website, I pay for the domain , the server space, I make and upload stuff... it's all me so I don't understand! All I can say is Oooooer......... something is wrong and I don't know what it is :(
Sorry, Ger, that was inattentive of me not to notice.

Right behind my post to you, Asher responded. I think he made a typo when he wrote "Bev" at the beginning of the post. Maybe not. Anyway, what he said has a little bit of
relevance to the mystery, so I'm quoting it here.

Asher said:
Bev, were you trying to post it in this thread?

If so for now, post the text too. Otherwise it will be a separate thread and I'll move it! Try changing the name of the image to something like "man.jpg". I have found that some images just won't embed without a name change. Perhaps there is something faulty in the name field we don't see!

The also check that the image is flat. Layers may cause problems.
Hope maybe some of that will help you.

ps where did the smilies go?
No idea. To smiley heaven? < she said smilingly >

As a last resort. Ger, you could put the fine black-and-white portrait up at Flickr. I know the special URL they create does work. I've been using free Flickr ever since I joined OPF.

I know it's a drag not to be able to embed from your own website!

It's just a thought.

I wish I could do more to help.

Mary
 
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Kevin Bjorke

New member
Nicolas Claris said:
Curious.
I wonder why I can't remember about any artist that have made black & white paints (except abstraction and all kind of drawings of course).
Try Albrecht Durer, for a start.

He occasionally painted in color but it was his line work that really made history. Likewise Raphael. Or Ingres. Or Paul Klee.

Slept through art history, did we? :)
 

Anita Saunders

New member
Mary Bull said:
Sorry, Ger, that was inattentive of me not to notice.

Right behind my post to you, Asher responded. I think he made a typo when he wrote "Bev" at the beginning of the post. Maybe not. Anyway, what he said has a little bit of
relevance to the mystery, so I'm quoting it here.

Asher said:

Hope maybe some of that will help you.


No idea. To smiley heaven? < she said smilingly >

As a last resort. Ger, you could put the fine black-and-white portrait up at Flickr. I know the special URL they create does work. I've been using free Flickr ever since I joined OPF.

I know it's a drag not to be able to embed from your own website!

It's just a thought.

I wish I could do more to help.

Mary
Thanks Mary, I really appreciate your help. I will check out Flickr and see what happens ... and now I am off to smiley heaven to see how many OPF smiles are there :)
 

Alain Briot

pro member
Kevin Bjorke said:
Try Albrecht Durer, for a start.

He occasionally painted in color but it was his line work that really made history. Likewise Raphael. Or Ingres. Or Paul Klee.

Slept through art history, did we? :)

Good examples.
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Likewise Raphael. Or Ingres. Or Paul Klee.
Slept through art history, did we? :)
Yes :-( and no :) !
I guess I'll have to google as well as open some books that are on waiting the shelves.
But
I was thinking (don't ask why!) to oil painting, no "eau forte", drawings, engraving...
and also about figurative not abstraction.

Of course after having read the above posts I started to google a bit and found these words from Paul Klee:
"En 1914, il voyagea avec Macke en Tunisie et y découvrit les pouvoirs de la couleur : «!C'est le moment le plus heureux de ma vie : la couleur et moi ne faisons plus qu'un. Je suis peintre.!"
Attempt of translation:
In 1914, he travelled with Macke in Tunisia and discovered the powers of the color: "! It is the happiest moment of my life: the color and I are united into one piece. I am a painter.!
Alain, please feel free to correct my translation...

[EDIT] 1914! guys, wake-up!!! :)))))))))))
---------------

BTW I wish to avoid any confusion here on my posts:
I have no intention to restrict any freedom to anybody creating B&W pictures.
How could I???
Why would I???

I've only tried to explain my point of view and why I think B&W even if it HAD been beautifull, is now old fashionned. In my mind. :p

I wish all of you a beautifully colored Sunday! (the funny thing is that today's sky in Bordeaux is W&Grey!!!!
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
.As I said before, Nicolas, you are a lover in delusion from staring into you lover's eyes/

Your romance is with the endless ocean, the heaving rolling waves, the sighing winds that whisper messages through the ropes and sails of yachts. You drink too much of the bright golden sunset and sinking sun eaten by distant clouds and sea monsters. You mind is thus giddy with colors, blues, lilacs and greens that printers cant print and the mind cant remember, that you have to revisit like an addict for his fix, a matter the cost.

So, you see in the doorway and old newspaper pushes and rustling by the wind, peeling notices for eviction on shuttered empty building and street signs going nowhere

So of course you give black and wihte a pass.!

YVF&HBHFAsher
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
You're too kind MVF&HBHFAsher, and I'm not sure that my English is good enough to understand completely your poésie.

Talking street sign?
This one has been shot on a Spanish road last August. Willing to express heat...
Convert it in B&W: heat dissapears... it could have been frozing that day...
Color brings information too.

_G8A1636_Ombre-Shadow.jpg


No boats, no sunset, no rolling waves, just a sign of heat...

Best
YFFFB
 

Mary Bull

New member
Nicolas Claris said:
Talking street sign?
This one has been shot on a Spanish road last August. Willing to express heat...
Convert it in B&W: heat dissapears... it could have been frozing that day...
Color brings information too.

_G8A1636_Ombre-Shadow.jpg


No boats, no sunset, no rolling waves, just a sign of heat...
Hey, Nicolas!
Doesn't look hot to me in this scene. Took your text to make me look for it.

Those blue shadows are as cold as any Tennessee winter's day, to my eye, and the pale red-violet ground could be participating in a winter twilight.

For street sign: show it to me in hot, brilliant, slightly saturated color, swinging above a shop, the summer tourists milling about on the crowded plaza.

Or show me the blowing newspapers which Asher wrote of, the abandoned, deteriorating doorway, the bleakness of a neighborhood emptied of life. Show that to me in b/w, the ink-on-newsprint look of a front page, minus the color photos of offset printing.

< she said affectionately to her favorite French fencer >

Mary
 

Alain Briot

pro member
Nicolas Claris said:
Of course after having read the above posts I started to google a bit and found these words from Paul Klee:
"En 1914, il voyagea avec Macke en Tunisie et y découvrit les pouvoirs de la couleur : «!C'est le moment le plus heureux de ma vie : la couleur et moi ne faisons plus qu'un. Je suis peintre.!"

Attempt of translation:
In 1914, he travelled with Macke in Tunisia and discovered the powers of the color: "! It is the happiest moment of my life: the color and I are united into one piece. I am a painter.!
Alain, please feel free to correct my translation...

[EDIT] 1914!
I like your translation. You could also say "I am one with color. I am a painter". What matters is the message. Klee realizes at that moment that being a painter is experiencing a symbiosis with paint. That he is no longer using paint to express himself but that rather he is paint and he is painting himself onto the canvas so to speak. The boundaries are now blurred, the separation of artist and tool no longer defined. I feel the same when I photograph, being one with color, light, the camera and the post processing I will perform afterwards.
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Alain Briot said:
I feel the same when I photograph, being one with color, light, the camera and the post processing I will perform afterwards.
Though I don't feel like being an artist (I always doubt about my photo work...) it happens to me also *sometimes* the same feeling, a real "jouissance" that lasts a few tenths of seconds...
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
However, Mary, the sign is pointing to purple, rose, hot colors, but you're dissapointing me, I missed the point!

and please don't ask me any B&W, not my cup of tea as you may have noticed…
< he said with a little tremolo in the voice ;-) >
 

Mary Bull

New member
It's okay, Nicolas. I had my bantering hat on. So the tremolo can come out of your voice. I shall never ask you to shoot in black and white.

I'm not sure whether you're making a play on words in your use of "sign" or if you actually didn't notice the word's alternate meaning which I was using.

A "sign" can be a "signboard"--a physical display with which a shop tells its name and what it is selling, for example. That's the sense in which I was using it.

I thought you were using "sign" to mean pointer--the colors in your image to be taken as information, "pointing" to heat--a pointer to how hot the road was.

I enjoyed the image very much and I'm enjoying my conversation with you about it.

< she said with a comforting warmth in her voice >

Mary
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Thank you MAry

I understood "sign" with its double meaning...

< he said once the tremolo had dissapeared from his voice >
 

Mary Bull

New member
In text, with no facial gestures to help, if one isn't sure, all one can do is "ask."

And thus are puns and punch lines of jokes destroyed.
< she said with the corners of her mouth turned down >

But there'll come a day, perhaps, when I won't have to ask you.

So: In what colors would you paint the derelict doorway, the sign with its lettering wearing thin, creaking in the gale, the old newspaper sheets blowing into a corner of the archway?

Mary
 
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