When To Choose Color Over B&W
In days gone by, the decision to take a photo in b&w or color was made at the time film was loaded into the camera. In the beginning of photography, there was actually no decision to be made at all. The constraints of the nascent film technology meant that color was not really an option, or certainly not a good option.
This actually worked out fairly well for photographers. If they wanted their work to be seen as an art form, which the painters of the art world steadfastly resisted, they had to create something that was quite different from just a realistic printed copy of a scene. They capitalized on the fact that humans see the world in color. Black and white has the effect of distancing the subject from reality. Street photographers learned to produce beautiful b&w compositions using lines, shapes, and contrast that froze moments that had been previously unseen.
When the technology of film progressed to the point that a good, workable quality of color film was available in the 1950s, the b&w street photographers, like the painters in the past, maintained that color photos could not be fine art. Among other things, they had spent a lifetime training their eye to take b&w pictures. Color did not offer anything that was in their best interest.
The amateur photographers of the world did not feel that constraint. Color photography became popular. It was used to create realistic family pictures, which is exactly what a lot of people wanted.
In the 1970’s, street photographers like Saul Leiter, Joel Meyerowitz, William Eggleston and others, in the face of fierce street photography community opposition, broke with tradition and produced their work in color. The change to color film went hand and hand with a change of subjects. Street photographers using color were no longer constrained to the geometric, high contrast scenes. They could shoot the every day scenes of life where color was the support for the composition. The art was in showing how the ordinary can be beautiful.
The widespread use of digital technology means that most of us now take pictures in color and then make the decision to desaturate to b&w in post processing. The question is, when should we use color and when should we use b&w?
Choose Color
Our natural way is to see the world is in color. We use color to distinguish objects from each other. Because color catches the eye, it can help identify a subject, particularly if the subject has a more prominent hue than the background.
Time of day?
Morning or afternoon?
• It can allude to the time of day or time of the year. Warm colors can signal autumn. Color colors signal winter. Green signals spring.
• It can convey a mood. Warm colors, for example, can portray happiness and love whereas cool colors can portray sadness and isolation.
• Color can suggest the era when the picture was taken. The downside to this is that color can date a picture.
• Complimentary colors (red/green, blue/yellow and purple/orange) can help show relationships.
Choose color when you have a narrow tonal range. What you lack in tonal contrast you can make up in color contrast, which is how well one color stands out against another color.
Chose color when the photo has so little color it is almost black and white. I have no idea why that is true, but it is true for the one example that I have.
Choose color when it is essential for telling the story. Color may be necessary to portray a culture in India or Cuba, for example. I personally believe it is easier to choose color in those countries because there is a cultural color palette which means there is more uniformity of color in the picture.
If the picture has a lot of color, it probably should be presented as a color picture.