Color vs. Black and White

"The difficulty with color is to go beyond the fact that it's color - to have it be not just a colorful picture but really be a picture about something. It's difficult. So often color gets caught up in color, and it becomes merely decorative. Some photographers use [it] brilliantly to make visual statements combining color and content; otherwise it is empty." Mary Ellen Mark

Not so quick to completely dismiss color photography, Mark hits upon one of its pitfalls. Color can be a distraction for several reasons. Extraneous color can misdirect attention of the viewer; for example, color in the background or on the subject that melts away in black and white can still be prominent. But it can also be utilized in this way to intentionally manipulate attention. Color also presents a problem to photographers because they must be conscious of why they are using color instead of black and white. But unlike Mark, I do not think that color photos always have to be "about something" or more than they are. Like William Albert Allard, "I see in color," and I am intrigued even solely by the variants and subtleties created by the colors of this world. Then again, I suppose I am thus aware of how I am thinking about color when I photograph, and so the "picture [is] about something" - at least to me.

In black and white, an element of our world is subtracted. Pictures can become abstracted. I find that in black and white, what can be really striking straight off is the quality of the light in the photo. The changes between light and dark, dim and bright, or lack there of. Addition of color can suggest an alternate vibrancy or lackluster. A different sort of life can enter the picture, and so meaning. Consider this photograph: 

(my mother, B. Tsai, 1960)

In black and white, the lightness of her dress contrasts with her long shadow. Perhaps this, in combination with the high angle, hints at her innocence as a young child and her dark shadow at what she will grow to be - an adult like the one who now occupies the high vantage point. This could tie into Robert Frank's thought that "[black and white] symbolize the alternative of hope and despair to which  mankind is forever subjected." If the picture had been in color, it could have reach a meaning in a different way. We don't know the reality of that day, but suppose the grass was dry and yellowing. Then her youth could contrast with the dying lawn. Or maybe it would suggest a particular time of year of occasion. Both black and white and color photography have their possibilities.

Historically speaking color was also innovation in photography and new technologies are always something wondrous. The change to color in everyday consumer photography is seen because it became widely available.

(changing from black and white to color)

(C. Tsai and B. Tsai, March 1963) 

(B. Tsai and B. Tsai, July 1963)

I think that many photographers decide to stick with black and white, especially in portraiture, because as Ted Grant states,m "WHen you photograph people in color, you are photographing their souls." Interestingly enough, I have recently learned that in the professional theater world color headshots are now the thing. Headshots are meant to both display a person's physical appearance and hint quickly at their (acting) essence. So the idea that black and white photography is outdated in this community is in contrast to Grant's thought that black and white bears the subject's soul. Whether this is true is a matter of opinion; I do not believe that there is only one way to something. When the world is full of possibilities, why confine yourself?

(headshots, A. DiNicola)