While I was walking Sparky on Saturday I started thinking about what I see and feel when I look at photographs … those I make and others. I’m certain that three things this week I experienced brought this about. I showed the Monalog Collective’s portfolio to a college that will be hanging a show of the members work, I participated in a virtual opening for a gallery show that includes one of my photographs, and I received a couple of black and white pictures of my beautiful grandchildren on my cell phone.
All of this caused me to reflect again upon what is so different and special about black and white photography.
When I’m living my daily life wherever I am I see the world about me in color … the colors that things are in reality. When I look at color photographs, unless the composition or subject matter is so compelling, it is hard for me to get truly captivated. It does happen sometimes and I do in fact own a couple of monographs containing color work. The problem for me is that when I view most color work I feel like I am looking at a reproduction of something that sometimes reminds me of a postcard.
When I look at black and white photographs, and especially ones made completely with analog processes and materials, I feel I am looking into something that comes from some alternative universe. There’s just so much depth to dive into and so much to explore. I never get tired of making them or looking at them … mine or others. The black and white viewing experience is just so much different. It takes me to a different place, a place that is often better for reasons understood and not understood, where there is a greater sense of compassion in the rendering of good and bad, a place that requires and causes contemplation. When I create the final black and white print and look at black and white photographs in person or in books, I sense that I am drilling down, penetrating the essence of the “thing itself”. All of this is good and it forces me to slow down, take a breath of fresh air and think more, maybe even daydream and become part of that alternative universe. All of this occurred for me even when I looked at my grandchildren on my cellphone, and in the most powerful way … not because I love them dearly but because the way they were captured … it was timeless, incredibly direct and … beautiful!
I feel differently about color paintings than I do about color photographs. Paintings seem to have a depth and luminosity that color photographs lack and I never tire of viewing great work at galleries and museums. I have taken my students to the Michener Museum to look at paintings because of what you can learn about light and composition, and I visit galleries and museums for the same reason.
Look, there has been great and important color work. In fact recently I purchased two color monographs. I bought them because I was interested in the subject matter. I enjoyed looking at them but I think the work would have been stronger in black and white. The great thing is that we have free will and we can make choices in life. My choice is black and white … the colors of my alternative universe.
Stay safe,
Michael