Re: [Leica] Old colour film stock and back to pictures.

[pchefurka@plaintree.com]

One of my aphorisms is that it's easier to make a good picture in 
colour, but it's easier to make a great picture in B&W.

Great pictures, to my mind, require some degree of abstraction. B&W 
gives you an automatic advantage because it provides one immediate level 
of abstraction - by removing the colour that can make a picture too 
representational.

For people, this seems to make their character more apparent, as the 
sense of their realistic appearance is subdued - it becomes less a 
picture "of" a person and more a picture "about" that person.

Paul

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________

Alan Sircom wrote:
     
> So, why do most people shots - either street or protraiture - look 
> better in B&W rather than colour? Is it too much HCB in my diet
> affecting my tastes or is there a more rational reason. Or is most 
> colour work crap?
     
I think it has to do with the fact that B&W, by removing the colour 
element, focuses the viewer's attention on the essential elements of 
composition and light. Most people are not that colourful anyway, certainly 
not compared to flowers, animals etc.
     
Nathan