B/W or do we...

[jacques]

Hi you all,

B/W or do we need color for sunsets ?





And for people ?





All with the back to basics Nikon 50mm 1.4 prime.

jacques.

 

[Martín Crespo]

Hi Jacques.

In the first I like the BW choice, gives more drama and has more contrast. I guess fits perfect for BW. As well as looks clean a lot (no noise in the sky)

The second I'm not sure about the conversion, I would try some more contrast and USM abuse to the face. But is just my taste

have a nice weekend and congrats by your new lens

--
Martín Miguel Crespo
http://www.ISO1600.com
http://www.LatinPhotography.com

 

[bocefus]

I prefer the sunset in color and the man in B&W.

Bocefus

Hi you all,

B/W or do we need color for sunsets ?





And for people ?





All with the back to basics Nikon 50mm 1.4 prime.

jacques.

 

[morris]

Hi Jacques, I love color! I love color so much, that I taught my self how to do my own color printing the old way with and enlarger, a drum processor, and a temperature bath. That said, the sunset is interesting in B&W but nothing compared to the color image. I like the B&W portrait better than the color version.

Morris

Hi you all,

B/W or do we need color for sunsets ?





And for people ?





All with the back to basics Nikon 50mm 1.4 prime.

jacques.

 

[Rob Patterson]

Hi you all,

B/W or do we need color for sunsets ?

Black and white definitely has it's place for sunsets. Skys with large fluffy cumulus clouds with rays of light strikingly penetrating can be quite dramatic in bw. In many cases it's superior because isolated color that causes distration can be totally avoided when working in greyscale.

I feel that we're living in an era of transition that will, over the next decade or two, see almost total elimination of bw in images prepared for the public.

This is a shame. Some of the greatest images ever composed were done in bw. George Cukor's work in cinema is now considered art. Hard light or specular highlights with minimal specular diffusion can only truly be perfectly achieved with black and white. Two many shades of color don't permit good dramatic lighting such as Cukor did. I predict that 50 years from now that the work of the masters of black and white will be highly collectible and very costly. Hope the movies that they are colorizing are copies and that the originals are kept as originally done.

The majority of people prefer color in my opinion because they had no early training in the use of black and white.

 

[Waldemar]

I feel that we're living in an era of transition that will, over
the next decade or two, see almost total elimination of bw in
images prepared for the public.
This is a shame. Some of the greatest images ever composed were
done in bw. George Cukor's work in cinema is now considered art.
Hard light or specular highlights with minimal specular diffusion
can only truly be perfectly achieved with black and white. Two many
shades of color don't permit good dramatic lighting such as Cukor
did. I predict that 50 years from now that the work of the masters
of black and white will be highly collectible and very costly. Hope
the movies that they are colorizing are copies and that the
originals are kept as originally done.
The majority of people prefer color in my opinion because they had
no early training in the use of black and white.

Personally i´m getting pulled more and more toward bw. Much more that i see around me seems to work only in bw. Here´s my bw from March 2003.

http://www.pbase.com/haak/march_2003

I think both your photos work well in bw, more interesting than the color versions.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Waldemar
http://www.pbase.com/haak
http://www.photo-haak.com
http://www.images-of-tuscany.com

 

[Greg VdB]

hello jacques,

I don't like the coloured version of the portrait, but I do like the other three very much. I can't realy choose between the two sunsets, although the b&w one is much more "serene" than the coloured version.

By the way, the reason I'm less frequent on the forum is that my thesis (eindwerk) is getting in a final stage. Just two more months to go, and I didn't have the chance to write a single letter yet... Still obtaining data...and processing... In fact I've spent all weekend on processing digital images I took through a microscope. Maybe I'll be posting some examples in a short while, just for fun.

with regards,
--
Greg Van den Bleeken
http://www.pbase.com/gbleek

 

[Mark_A]

Hi you all,
B/W or do we need color for sunsets ?

Hi jacques,
Just depends what mood you are in I guess
For me I think black and white is just more ageless and always more arty.
Colour somehow often looks like a more "recent" modern photograph.

Its interesting to me that a candid of a person in colour looks usually like a candid snapped of a person but in bw it can look way more arty and much more as if it was planned

And for people ?

All with the back to basics Nikon 50mm 1.4 prime.

Looks good that lense.

--
Mark

 

[jacques]

Thank you martin,

The blue eye is showing and surprisingly enough it seems to have the same 'grey' as it's serounding tissue.

jacques.

 

[jacques]

Hi bocefus,

thanks for your comments,

jacques.

 

[jacques]

Hi morris,

Thanks for your reply. About a week ago I decided to go for B/W for a couple of weeks, well now I'm cheeting a bit setting the S2 to B/W, but capturing in RAW. So I still can decide to convert back to color. ;-)

BTW I do lik ethe sunset in color as well, as it's almost B/W with only diffrent reds added,

jacques.

 

[jacques]

Hi Rob,

Many thanks for writing your thoughts about B/W, it's importance and about what the future might bring us.

I do see quite a lot of peopl eon the diffrent forums, who (partly) left the color photographs to do some B/W again. So I think within a few decades we still will have lot of photographs made or converted to B/W, dual tones, etcetera. I feel a lot of us, trying to use the offered possibilities in many ways.

Using prime lens again gives me feelings I haven't had for many years, but I think it's also kind of challenge to use it in an acceptable way, still trying to make the composition at the moment of capturing, alittle bit more difficult with a prime than with a zoom, or should I write just verry different,

jacques.

 

[jacques]

Hi Grag,

Thanks taking some of your very valuable time to write these comments.

And I wish you verry good progress in writing your thesis, I still now what kind of hectic that means. Oh boy already 27 years ago ;-)

See you after that period more often I hope,

jacques.

 

[jacques]

Hi Mark,

About the sunset in B/W, well could have been a long exposured moon lighted harbor too, the portrait I think most of the time will gain by B/W, this one isn't so great as the contrast between the man's right eye (for us in th eleft) and the serounding tissue is to small.

I bought the 1.4 for obtaining and plying with extreme shallow DOF, this one is at ISO 160, 1/1500s and F2.4, focussed on his right eye, so there isn't any camera shake blur at 1/1500s, but the shallow DOF makes parts if his face already out of focus, the focus plane appears all over the frame, i.e. some of the hairs on his shin are in focus too.

thanks for your comments,

jacques.