Color or black and white

Yes I have looked at the Edward Weston school of fruit and vegetable photography and no I am not up to his standard but it does not preclude me trying.

I am pleased with the black and white (B&W) image ... but has the colour worked:

~ No IMHO....

Why?

Because I see EW's images in black and white and although others have used colour, exotic images of fruit should of course be black and white....

Some - no many years ago I heard a photographer explaining how he had been commissioned to take photographs of some ~ well lets call it industrial transport to save embarrassment. The brief was simple B&W images of the item plus two workmen outside each of their factories so hire a car arrange itinerary take photographs process and deliver finished prints... job done client pleased with results. ... by the way did you happen to take any in colour.... no you just asked for B&W. ... Yes our mistake we realised we should also have asked for colour as well so could you go and take them in colour...hire car ...arrange itinerary ...take photographs etc... apocryphal well I heard it first hand from the photographer along with the clients name and the industrial item.

In those days 'industrial' photographs were B&W - only... and... and this may be apocryphal.... the head of my photographic school renowned for his B&W images and assistants arriving by large van a couple of days before to set up the megawatts of lighting, arrived to take the two photographs (process one first and alter development on the second if necessary) . When he had taken them he was very timidly asked if he would mind terribly also taking the image in colour. Request rejected ~ probably along the lines that there were other people could take snapshots if they wanted some .... Yes B&W was serious stuff and colour was for your Kodak Retinette or Instamatics.

So what about this image of a Stygian pond in the woods...

The water was black, well almost but not photographically black and I tried for an impressionist type image:

Well impressionism was colour ... so would this have worked in black and white. I did not think so at the time but a recent file conversion makes me wonder...


If only they had had access to digital photography when I was a college!