Color or B&W film?

[Prime]

Which film do you use most?

[William Levitt]

To clarify my vote of "only BW"...if I have a client that needs color, then I'shoot a sheet of color as well, but only if absolutly necessary.

[HuwEvans]

Perhaps I should clarify my vote too - I also said B&W exclusively, but that is a fairly recent change, made a couple of years ago. Anyone looking at my website would get a very different impression, but I'm afraid it's well out of date.

I'm now B&W only by choice, but likewise if the occasion demanded colour I wouldn't shy away from it.

[Prime]

I wonder why so many analog photographers use B&W. Could it be due to the ease of the process (easy?) and/or availability of materials? Any ideas?

[Jorge]

I wonder why so many analog photographers use B&W. Could it be due to the ease of the process (easy?) and/or availability of materials? Any ideas?

More control, with color you are stuck with what the film latitude is and processing always the same. Of course if you are really good with color and have your own darkroom you can exercise some measure of extra control, but nothing compared to what you can do with B&W. The same controls traditionally used in the color darkroom, e.i, masks, burning with a different filter color, etc. Can be used with B&W with greater success, on top of that you have the print manipulation, water bath, toning, etc etc....things you dont generally do with color. As a large format photographer I find I "see" better when I am looking for contrasts, shapes, textures. WIth color I think you are required to "see" as the film does, which I cannot do to save my life!

[Robert Kennedy]

I think too that B&W has a certain emotive quality that works best with the analog medium. B&W never seems to really look right when digitally output.

[David Vickery]

I use B&W film almost exclusively and I think that one of the reasons that it appeals to me is that I can't see in B&W. I can try to imagine a B&W print, or what a subject might look like sort of, but I really can't see in B&W. I see color fine, its everywhere. There is nothing unique about it for me.

[steve]

"WIth color I think you are required to "see" as the film does, which I cannot do to save my life! "

I use color about 99 percent of the time. It is much harder to shoot than black and white, specifically because you don't have all of the controls and tricks to make up for poor seeing, exposure, or composition. It's sort of like comedy versus drama. A bad drama is merely boring, a bad comedy is readily apparent and you know it stinks. Color is like that, it either really works well or not at all. I like to think of it as the equivalent of haiku poetry in that you have strictures imposed by working with color materials, and you have to be very precise with both subject choice and seeing the photograph.

When I make a really good color photo, I know because I can look at it and say, "nope, wouldn't work in black and white." With a black and white photo you can always play in the darkroom to attempt to make it work after the film is exposed.

[b.e.wilson]

</span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Prime @ Sep 20 2002, 05:51 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>I wonder why so many analog photographers use B&amp;W. Could it be due to the ease of the process (easy?) and/or availability of materials? Any ideas?</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
I find that as an almost strictly color shooter, and this concerns the darkroom alone, that to do color well you must be an excellent technician (keeping strict control over temperatures and times), while to do B&W well you must be more of an artist (altering film development and print exposure to get what you want, not a strict interpretation of what is on the film).

B&W, being a single (or more recently a double) layer emulsion allows much more variety in development to yield different effects.

Color, having multiple layers, requires a great uniformity of development if you want to control colors and color balance. This limits the artistic gamut quite a bit. Sure, there are some very creative color darkroom artists around, but in color it&#39;s an effort to be creative in the darkroom, whereas in B&W creativity with contrast and brightness is literally a part of daily darkroom work.

As good as I am in turning out color work in my basement, I still can&#39;t do the really creative stuff that a lot of you B&W guys do daily. Maybe someday I&#39;ll be an artist; right now I&#39;m a lab tech.

[steve]

>>>"I use B&W film almost exclusively and I think that one of the reasons that it appeals to me is that I can&#39;t see in B&W. I can try to imagine a B&W print, or what a subject might look like sort of, but I really can&#39;t see in B&W."<<<

Sure you can. Buy a monochromatic viewing filter. Great help when evaluating subjects to be rendered in black and white. Will also help you judge filter effects, should you choose to use those. Should I use a #15, or go for the #23A? Viewing filter will help greatly in seeing what happens, and then, after a while you just know the filter you want to use because you can visualize what it will look like.