Removing Color from Older Images is Unacceptable

[AFTT47]

One thing that seriously pisses me off is when people deliberately remove color from an image. Why the fuck would anybody deliberately degrade an image? I know this is done because I routinely see images from the middle 70s-onward in black and white when it is extremely unlikely images taken in that era would be taken in black and white film. Why do this?

[Shell B]

Aesthetics?

[AFTT47]

How is it aesthetically pleasing to reduce a color image to black and white?

If the viewer prefers black and white, he/she can remove color for himself/herself. Why would the poster deliberately degrade the image of information?

[brewer]

Somebody told me it was no longer appropriate to trick or treat that way.

[Shell B]

Because they like it?

[Rev. Rye]

Because they like it?

Yeah, black and white photography can actually be quite beautiful, and, if not exactly gorgeous, still striking. Just to name one particularly extreme example, by changing to black and white film, the second Human Centipede film actually was rendered somewhat watchable.

On a less horrific note, one person who routinely makes films with unrealistic color choices is Guy Maddin, who does this because he really loves the aesthetic of films of the 1920s and 1930s:



Most of the film is in black and white, but small sections are in colour, specifically an early type that used only green and red strips but no blue. Only a few films managed to use it before they finally figured out how to properly do blue, few of those did it the whole movie, fewer survived, and you can probably count the number of all-two-strip Technicolor films to reach DVD on your fingers. And the strange color scheme, where everything was shades of red, white, and cyan, really intrigues me to no end to the point where I snatched up a copy of The King of Jazz (one of those few to make it to DVD) as soon as I found out it was coming to Blu-Ray:



Yes, Rhapsody in Blue in a system that can't actually do blue. I ate it up and I even managed to find an app that mimics it damn well. It's called Recs and look for the Hollywood 1929 filter. Here's some photos I took with this even less natural-looking system:





#hailtritanopia

[Shell B]

Intriguing.

One of my favorite pictures of me and my sister is in black and white. I enjoy color as well. It all depends on the photo. I tend to prefer film in color, though (not exclusively).

[LostLocke]

One thing that seriously pisses me off is when people deliberately remove color from an image. Why the fuck would anybody deliberately degrade an image? I know this is done because I routinely see images from the middle 70s-onward in black and white when it is extremely unlikely images taken in that era would be taken in black and white film. Why do this?

B&W film never went out of style. Even though color had become king even before the 70s, B&W was still used, and still is today, even in this age of digital*.

If it's a photo you know was in color and are asking why someone "shopped" it into B&W, I have no clue. Why do some people insist on colorizing an image that was intentionally taken as B&W? I also have no clue. But, meh... whatever they want to do.
Lots of images that start as color work well as a B&W. Some are actually better as B&W, too.


*Leica makes a beautiful monochrome rangefinder camera. It's digital, but it literally only shoots in B&W. Clocks in at $7200. If money were no object I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

[Rev. Rye]

Also, as I mentioned earlier, there's an iPhone app called Recs that's actually free and does several unusual and historic filters in colour, black and white, and even based on the display of vintage computers.

[onlinebiker]

Because -
Some of us miss the smell of stop bath, and like the look.
I spent thousands of hours developing black and white 35 and 70 mm film.
I had my own darkroom in my house for years.
Black and white photography is more about the simplicity of form.
In some cases - a lot some may argue - the vibrancies of color distract from the appreciation of form.
If you didn't grow up with it - it' s going to be hard to understand.