Posts
Here's four renditions of a single image. A case could be made for any one of them as being the best, well perhaps not the brightest, but all are acceptable, yet the mood is dramatically different. None is 'real' while the others not. The photographer is free to interpret the image any way he fancies.
Partly this is a function of black and white photography in general, but also it's a matter of subject - in this case who's to say how bright the lighting was, how light the paint. It's likely that this much manipulation in colour would give it a distinct sense of unreality - not necessarily a bad thing, simply something to recognize.
5 comments:
Your last comment reminds me of Ansel Adams' general lament about color. Namely, that while BW permits considerable "manipulation" (in the pure sense of course;-) before a sense of unreality creeps in, color vastly constrains what can be done before an image is obviously "false".
It's ironic that BW is so forgiving. Given that few of us see the world in BW, a BW image is even more obviously "false" than a mildly distorted color image. A related comment (question to you, George): I have looked at Adams' book of color images (printed by Calalhan, I believe?), and was very underwhelmed. Very little of Adams' BW Wagnerian drama is evident; indeed, many appear somewhat bland (aesthetically/emotionally). I was wondering if you had seen Adams' color images, and, if so, what you think of them?
Andy: I agree, those colour images I have seen of Ansel's were very ordinary - well composed, pretty, but lacking any power, drama, whatever.
On the other hand, Harry Callaghan had a very nice book of his colour work - he seemed to understand the use of colour despite a hstory of years of black and white work.
George
You may already do this, but I'll mention it anyway. Whenever I feel I've come to the end of editing a photo, colour or mono, I always check to see if it may work as the other.
In other words, If I just finished a monochrome image I'll merge to a new layer, turn off the layers in between the top and original colour layers and set the blending mode on the top layer to Luminosity. The colour comes back and sometimes it takes me to a place I might have never gone had I decided to edit in colour.
Same goes for editing colour. When I feel I'm done I add a new layer of black or white and set the blending mode to colour. This is usually less effective than the previous conversion, but it can sometimes lead to a worthwhile image.... or at least a big step toward one.
Regards,
Jarrad
Kevin:
I'd not heard of that idea before - I have wondered in the past about how I could keep the editing but restore the colour long since removed from the image. Thanks for the tip (both ways).
George
More than any other visual art form, photographic based imaging allows us to choose among very different yet equally strong creations. And that raises a question re. our purpose as artists. Even if we do not want to sell our images, we have a drive to show them... to have them perform. And that means viewers.
Viewers have an absorptive capacity. Which brings us back to the decision thing. How to decide which of our eqully strong options is the sufficient one... the one to show. A tryptic is not a solution. Not when the final renditions quarrel with one another. We have many more paths than any artists save jazz musicians. But they have the freedom of repetition... it's expected that they will revisit an idea. There the audience thrives upon variation... here, however we have to decide when to stopper our creativity.
Question... How to decide to do nothing more?
Thanks for sharing
Ted
My Images Explained
My Images Stored
Post a Comment