Black and White or Color?

"White Dress," by B.A."Tony" King

 

To me, this photograph of a ittle girl's white party dress by B.A. King, whom I consider to have been Ameerica's greatest unknown photographer, could not possibly be improved by being in color. (I wrote several posts about King some time ago. To check them out, click here.

On the other hand, my photograph of sunrise in McLemore Cove would be nothing without color, even though it's mostly only variations of a single color..

"Sunrise in the Cove."  McLemore Cove, Northwest Georgia

The issue of whether to photograph in color or black and white was a non-issue for nearly the first hundred years of photography's history because there was no practical way to photograph in color. That ended in the mid-1930s when Kodachrome was invented, but color film and processing were expensive; so for many years most photographs were made in black and white. The studio portraits we had made of our infant son Donny in the late 1960s, for instance, were made on black and white film and hand colored.

So much of the great work of the 20th century was in black and white, and would not have been better if it had been in color. But as digital photography began to surpass film in the early years of this century, the question of color or black and white became a non-issue again, because digital photographs were in color. If you wanted black and white you could convert the files to monochrome. But few did. Including me.

I love and respect black and white and honor the vast body of work done in that medium, but I'm afraid I'm stuck with being a color photographer. As I look at my work I see hardly anything I shot in color that would be better in black and white.

In my heart I’m a globe-trotting, black and white film, Leica-shooting photojournalist in the mold of Elliott Erwitt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, or Josef Koudelka. But the bitter truth is that I am an autofocus, SLR, zoom lens, color photographer. That’s what I am, and I will just have to live with it.

Photograph and text copyright 2022, David B.Jenkins. "White Dress" copyright Judy and Tony King Foundation, 2022.)  

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo

For the glory of God alone

My book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, is now out of print, although copies are apparently still available from Amazon, and possibly other sources. The second edition is now in the editing stage and is scheduled to be published on December 6th.