Northern Nevada Highway

Readers respond to last week’s post

Last week I wrote about a dilemma I experienced while processing a recent photograph I had made. In my post, Uncharted Territory – Monochrome or Color I expressed disappointment in the quality I got when I converted the color image to grayscale. I asked readers to take a look at a couple of samples and weigh in on which of the two versions of each image worked best.

I received a significant response and found the comments provocative and illuminating. Following is a breakdown of the totals sorted by preference, followed by excerpts from comments both publicly posted at my blog as well as ones sent directly to my email. After these representative comments I will make some closing remarks summarizing my current thoughts on color vs monochrome photography.

The untitled photographs embedded here are representations of what happens to certain images when converted from color to monochromes. Click on them to get a larger, better look.

Totals
Preferred the color rendition: 13
Preferred the monochrome: 6
Both or couldn’t decide: 11

St. Mary’s Church, Nicasio, CA

Readers will recall that I was unsatisfied with my attempt at converting a color original into a monochrome version. I felt that I lost some of the presence, the graphic quality of the landscape, in translation. Also, I wondered if I was even preferring the color version. This was out of character for someone who has produced only monochromatic photographs for more than 30 years, I asked if anyone wondered “if had lost my marbles?”

Here are some of the comments I got, both from emails to me and posts on the blog page:

Dianne:
No, you haven’t lost your marbles! I LOVE the color; it’s so clearly Spring and completely JOYFUL, where the monochrome just doesn’t convey that energy.

Bets:
…vista is just too big for b&w in this case

Barbara:
The clouds jump out more in monochrome. But the water and hills look nicer in color.

Anne:
The colour works partly because the colour palette is minimal – blue, green and white.

Rishi:
The monochrome is far more powerful, looming presence, dynamic strength. The clouds are urgent and almost jump off the page. In color they are friendly, here the emotional impact is insistent and attention-grabbing.

John:
…in the first pair of photos, I think the color version has a lot more pop, and tells the story better. The different colors in the photo all translate to a much narrower range of gray tones.

In the second pair, though, I do prefer the b/w version. The composition is simpler and the different areas are well distinguished without need for color.

Mary:
I felt the clouds in black and white were strong, almost demanding of attention, whereas in color they seemed almost an afterthought.

Tom:
Although pretty, I find the color version a bit too much like a travel postcard for my taste. I think the monochrome in large would be better.

Sue:
Both images are lovely. However, I find the textures of the monochrome completely irresistible and could study the image for a long time. In color, my eyes sweeps across and sees familiar blues and greens and I’m less inclined to linger.

Tom I.:
Observation: the subject has tremendous detail in an expansive frame, and perhaps lacks the strong, few elements and high contrast that BW exploits so effectively.

Frosted Leaves of Grass

Then, finally, I heard from an old friend with whom I’ve had many stimulating discussions about visual perception. We share a love for black & white photography. I have excerpted his longer email for the salient points. I think Stuart articulates very well why I was in such a quandary about the photographs I recently posted at my blog.

Stuart:
…the color version shows better contrast between the water and shore features…likely to be because the luminance contrast is low so that one must rely on color contrast. By comparison the clouds in the scene are more dramatic in B& W. Here the luminance contrast is strong.

…color and form information become separated early in the neural pathway. Form is carried at higher resolution than color. Thus, the color information (blurred) can distract from form information (sharper). So the form stands out better in B&W because the distracting color information has been removed. But, if the luminance contrast is low, color information is needed and B&W does not work.

Thus, B&W works best if luminance contrast is high and form is the dominant feature of the scene.

Two Water Glasses

Closing thoughts
It was stimulating to read so many excellent comments. They provoked me into taking a closer look at what I have been doing and why. Putting a little distance between my efforts of last week helped also.

From time to time I find that I’ve made a landscape image that looks better to me in color. But, I love the monochrome so  much that I quickly abandon any plans to show it in color… so far! I want to step away from the color and explore what is underneath it; forms, lines, textures, shadows, the light itself. These feel primal, fundamental and deeper to me.

So, for the time being, I’ve decided to stay the course. I will remain faithful to my monochromatic work. I suspect that if and when I include color photography in my portfolio it will be of my macro or abstract creations. For now, the landscape will be in black and white, as it always has been.

Surging Bubbles, Point Reyes Seashore

I’ve entered uncharted territory. . . .
For the past two days I’ve wrestled with a couple of new scenic photographs I had made on Sunday afternoon. The more I worked on them, the less I liked them. I just couldn’t seem to get these images to express what I saw and felt as I photographed the light at a favorite place, near the village of Inverness, on the shore of Tomales Bay. 

What I saw was the singular beauty of Black Mountain, its folds accented by the late afternoon sun. The clouds above the mountain were spectacular, puffy cumulus, brilliantly lit as well. The foreground included rivulets of shining water, remnants of the receding tide. The light shone everywhere, including on a swamped duck boat at the water’s edge. As I stood watching and working the scene with my camera, I felt deeply happy, grateful I could be there to witness such a moment of light.

Later, back at my studio, I couldn’t get my new images to sing, to reveal what I had experienced, no matter how many ways I processed them. The mountain fought with the clouds, and the grasses and tidal waters merged making it unclear where land ended and water began.

What follows is my best version of that scene, made last night. I was ready to give up, until it dawned on me that maybe this photograph was never meant to be a monochrome.

As much as I pride myself on being an exclusively black-and-white photographic artist, I decided to peak under the hood of my image for the original color record. (Note: beneath all of my digital black and white images, there’s a full color version that I’ve converted to monochrome!) Normally, I take only a cursory look at the original color before moving on to my conversion, but this time I bravely looked again.

What I found was both delightful and a little bit threatening to my self-declared artist image. In the color version, the mountain stopped arguing with the clouds and the water knew its boundary with the land! I could even see the duck boat again. The color rendering looked and felt more like what I saw and felt when I stood there earlier in the week. Well, what was I going to do, now?

So, for the time being, I’m letting both versions see the light of day. I have no idea where all this goes. I’ll be writing more about this in the coming days. In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please let me know what you think about all of this: have I lost my marbles? Should I change my ways and add color to my expressive work, or should I leave well enough alone? I’m all ears. Write to me here: info@martyknapp.com

Before I go, here’s another photo from that day shown in both versions: