I can't appreciate B&W photos

iamascientist wrote in post #16406030
If you don't appreciate BW as in you don't appreciate any of it period, well there's still nothing wrong with you, but I'd be almost 100% certain you have hardly any appreciation for art and no training of any kind, like the large majority of photographers.

Could be. B&W just doesn't wow me. I don't think to myself "wow, this would look great in B&W".

I guess I just can't "see" it

iamascientist wrote in post #16406030
If you don't prefer to shoot black and white, no, there's nothing wrong with that, there's nothing wrong with you, its your decision.

If you don't appreciate BW as in you don't appreciate any of it period, well there's still nothing wrong with you, but I'd be almost 100% certain you have hardly any appreciation for art and no training of any kind, like the large majority of photographers.

I agree.

I think there is also an extraordinary amount of crap black and white photography around. A lot of people think that desaturating a photo makes it "arty", so they do it without giving any thought as to what purpose a mono conversion would serve. Not all subjects lend themselves to mono.

Personally I love black and white images. But then, I love art, and have as much appreciation for lines, perspective, form and chiaroscuro as I do for compelling subjects. In fact, for me, they often become the subject.

CanonVsNikon wrote in post #16406102
Could be. B&W just doesn't wow me. I don't think to myself "wow, this would look great in B&W".

I guess I just can't "see" it

We all have preferences and thats what makes this all so cool. I don't think that there is anything more beautiful that a wonderfully printed silver gelatin print. Well maybe a platinum print but there is something magic about the way silver reflects light back to your eye. I enjoy good color work. Elliot Porter, Meyerowitz's Cape Light, Eggelstons color work and so many more. I have been shooting strictly B&W for the past year for my personal work because it's the way I have been seeing.

I really appreciate good black and white work. However, almost all of the B&W images I like fall far outside of my genre, which is wildlife photography.

Shooting effective black & white images of wild animals in their natural surroundings is especially difficult for one primary reason: most animals and birds are colored so as to blend in to the surrounding habitat. So, for most wildlife, I could not rely on contrast between the subject's natural tone and that of it's surroundings, because the two are usually very similar. So, to make effective B&W images of my subjects, I would have to look for - and wait for - anomalies of light. This can be done, and can result in some fantastic imagery, but several days might pass by before such an anomaly occurs (with a cooperative, nearby subject). I'm not saying that this can't be done, but it would be hard to shoot prolifically if one is only doing B&W with wild subjects.

So, I'll stick to my color work for my own shooting, but I will certainly spend time online viewing and appreciating excellent B&W work, especially that which is in genres which I do not shoot, such as still life, street, and landscape photography.

^i'm going through 2 photography books right now and all the pictures are B&W, wildlife, travel and landscape
Sebastiao Salgado - Genesis
https://www.google.ca …kQ_AUoAQ&biw=11​85&bih=581
Nick Brandt - Across the Ravaged Land
https://www.google.ca …kQ_AUoAQ&biw=11​85&bih=581

some of the animal pictures looks staged and/or not in their natural environment, but still past the colors you can see the details on the animals, ie the lion's mane, wrinkles on an elephant and my favorite of all, their eyes
http://3.bp.blogspot.c​om …98l7Il-1JNQ/s640/lion.jpg


color is one of the first thing we will notice, most beginner photographers think that just because they got some good colors that their shot is good, this is a problem that I see a lot on landscape photography
but likewise can be said on b&w, most people think that just by converting their shots to B&W that it is street photography already

One of my all time favorite photographs of deer.
http://www.jacksonfine​art.com/images/private​/largest/19.jpg

airfrogusmc wrote in post #16407003
One of my all time favorite photographs of deer.
http://www.jacksonfine​art.com/images/private​/largest/19.jpg

Is that IR?

airfrogusmc wrote in post #16407003
One of my all time favorite photographs of deer.
http://www.jacksonfine​art.com/images/private​/largest/19.jpg

Yeah, that is a really special image. An all-white subject against a dark evergreen forest - that certainly has the makings for a great B&W wildlife image!

I have never seen a white deer in nature . . . none of the deer native to North America are white, except for the freak individual here & there. I wonder if the deer in that photo are a wild herd, or if they were specially bred in captivity to exploit a recessive gene?

No, just straight B&W of white deer running (Ireland IIRC and late 1960s?) with a very dark background

Tom Reichner wrote in post #16407058
Yeah, that is a really special image. An all-white subject against a dark evergreen forest - that certainly has the makings for a great B&W wildlife image!

I have never seen a white deer in nature . . . none of the deer native to North America are white, except for the freak individual here & there. I wonder if the deer in that photo are a wild herd, or if they were specially bred in captivity to exploit a recessive gene?

Theres a herd near Argonne National Laboratory Water Fall Glen Illinois. I don't know if they are native.

Wow! Off topic here but Airfrogusmc, you have what I think is the highest post count of anyone I have ever seen in this forum. Never even paid much attention to that before.

Okay, back on topic... Sorry!

Edit!!!
I just did a search and see that your count is actually small compared to the top posters.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #16407080
Theres a herd near Argonne National Laboratory Water Fall Glen Illinois. I don't know if they are native.

I'm going to have to Google that. If they are native, and free-ranging (not fenced in), that would be worth the 4,000+ mile round trip! Even moreso if there is the possibility of photographing a mature, antlered buck.

EDIT: Whoops! They are not native deer. They are Fallow Deer, an exotic species brought in from North Africa and/or Eurasia. They are free-ranging and they could make for some wonderful B&W imagery, for anyone who enjoys photographing our non-native mammals. This sounds like an opportunity that could have some real potential. Thanks for the tip, Allen!

I prefer color but I do like some B&W photos though if I had to choose one or the other I would choose color. One of my favorite pictures I ever took was a B&W of a girl sitting in a car at night with no lighting other than the dome light. I long ago lost the negative and the print I made but I still remember the picture. B&W and color both have their place but I still like color better.

I went to a showing of some Ansel Adams photos a few years ago and I was disappointed. There were a few really good photos but for the most part the rest just didn't do anything for me. I do appreciate how hard he had to work to get the detail and contrast in those pictures, and technically they were great, but for most of them I kept thinking "I wonder what that would look like in color".

RandyMN wrote in post #16407086
Wow! Off topic here but Airfrogusmc, you have what I think is the highest post count of anyone I have ever seen in this forum. Never even paid much attention to that before.

Okay, back on topic... Sorry!

Edit!!!
I just did a search and see that your count is actually small compared to the top posters.

I spend WAY to much time here Thanks for reminding me...

Sparky98 wrote in post #16407141
I prefer color but I do like some B&W photos though if I had to choose one or the other I would choose color. One of my favorite pictures I ever took was a B&W of a girl sitting in a car at night with no lighting other than the dome light. I long ago lost the negative and the print I made but I still remember the picture. B&W and color both have their place but I still like color better.

I went to a showing of some Ansel Adams photos a few years ago and I was disappointed. There were a few really good photos but for the most part the rest just didn't do anything for me. I do appreciate how hard he had to work to get the detail and contrast in those pictures, and technically they were great, but for most of them I kept thinking "I wonder what that would look like in color".

Oh my! I have looked at Ansel Adams prints and could not even care what they'd look like in color. Looking at his prints amazes me still, even in this day of easily made digital shots. I could never recreate what he did with film and with today's digital capabilities I would still have a difficult time. Attempting what he did with color is not relevant since his subjects made for great B&W photography.