[Leica] What are the most important aspects of a photographic image?

[rcmphoto at yahoo.com (R. Clayton McKee)]

--- On Tue, 1/4/11, Steve Barbour <steve.barbour at gmail.com> wrote:


> I don't think this is true George....clearly color should
> be used, "if it's about color" but "if the image depends on
> color (only) to make its impact, then it's largely lost"...
> 
> 
> is this not basically correct?  If it's not correct,
> why?

Because aside from a personal aesthetic choice by the photographer, there's 
no longer any reason why the default for an image SHOULD be B&W.  

The majority of the population DOES see color, and in terms of publication 
the B&W image was most likely initially captured as a color version.  So 
there's absolutely no reason to consider the use of color as anything except 
another tool in the photographic box.  

Every week we see dozen of photographs come through the saloon... ordinary 
photographs of ordinary people doing ordinary things, elevated to the status 
of extraordinary because the person behind the camera was able to use the 
light, or the contrast, or the composition of the photo, or the HDR 
capability of digital imaging, to make those shots into something more.
Probably 95% of those shots, if we took away the tool upon which they depend 
for their impact, would not be worth a first look, never mind a second.

Why is it any LESS legitimate to allow the use of color as simply another of 
those tools for creating effective photos?


R. Clayton McKee
PhotoJournalist
from somewhere just south of somewhere else...