Roseate Spoonbill.
Over the last couple of days I’ve been printing some of my digital images. We bought a photo printer last year (you know, the kind with several cartridges instead of just two). My brother had recommended Epson, so that’s what we got. Other than a few 4X6 prints of some of my flower shots, used to make greeting cards, I really had not done much with it. In fact, The vast majority of the pictures I’ve taken since I went digital, and renewed my interest in photography for its own sake, have remained on the computer, perhaps uploaded to Flickr or my blog. In short, I have never seen most of them printed. I’m not sure what, if any, significance this has. Anyway, a friend said I should put some prints in a local fair. I was intrigued by the idea, so I printed out about a dozen, to select the ones I wanted to show. The same friend was kind enough to take them to the designated place at the appointed time, and I guess they’ll be on exhibit starting tomorrow. If any of them get a prize ribbon, that’ll be nice, but the best part of the whole thing has already happened.
By that I mean that I printed them out. Saw them as actual photographs. I was surprised, and delighted. Whatever the virtues of my imagery, they actually look better in print than on the monitor! This may seem like one of those “well, duh” sort of things, but there it is. Now, I know that putting a crappy painting in a really nice frame does not make it Art, but seeing something, anything, in its best presentation certainly doesn’t hurt. So, I put my selected images on mount board, and they are off to the Fair.
Two of my images I converted to black & white, to enter them in that category. I had never done that since I started digital photography. Not on the computer, and certainly not in print. I’m not a huge fan of B&W, and that’s part of the discussion I’m offering up today (patience, I’ll get there). Examples:
Those who have viewed my photos posted on this blog, and have also looked at my Flickr offerings, will be aware of my delight in, and predeliction for strong, saturated colors. Subtle and muted, most of my images ain’t. Now, I’ll get to the point.
The subject of color, how much, how strong, or any at all, when it comes to photography is the subject of much discussion. I was inspired to approach it today by Pohangina Pete. His blog is linked on my blogroll because I enjoy his discussions, and his images. I don’t comment much on his blog, and I have no idea if he’s ever even looked at mine. Anyway, his most recent posting discusses, in part, color in photography:
Seeing colour and recognising what might work in a photo, isn’t as easy as sounds, particularly now we’re bombarded with and have become accustomed to ultra-saturated images. Mike Johnston, primary author of The Online Photographer, said recently:
“It’s often a source of wonder to me that color photography so infrequently uses color to any advantage—many viewers seem to prefer color simply for its verisimilitude—it shows what was, just because it was—without any thought to whether [...] the colors in a picture have any aesthetic affect or impact. Color can ruin pictures for me, as often as not.”
There’s more, and I commend his thoughtful discussion, including images, to your attention.
So, here I am, like an infant child looking up at those strongly saturated colors in the mobile hung above my crib, graduating to crawling with toys in eye-damaging primaries, and on throughout childhood. Is subtlety an adult thing? Is appreciating pastels, muted colors, hints of something other than gray the mark of the sophisticated mind and eye? Well, I’m going to turn this question around a bit, in order to express my view.
When I was in college, I took several photography courses. The thinking then was that any photo which had pretense to Art had to be black and white. Color photography was for boobs with Instamatics and Polaroids. Ma an Pa Kettle and the Kids posed in front of Mount Rushmore. I never accepted that, and soon moved away from the courses, and photography, to more academic things, then the law. Some of that thinking is still around. Funny thing. When I open my eyes, I see a world in color. Lots of color. I (We) do not live in a chiaroscuro world. Black and White photography to me has always seemed, well, gimmicky (I’ll leave my further thoughts on visual trickery, bromides, and gimcracks for another time).. I know there was a time when color photography had not been invented yet, but the limitations of past technology do not, to me, offer any instruction as to What Is Art. I’ll agree that some colors in nature (nature being everything you see when your eyes are open) are subtle. So, if you are photographing something with subtle colors, and it makes you happy, by all means reproduce them that way. If it suits you, search out such subjects and do them justice. I’m okay with that. Is there some universal virtue in that? If there is, I don’t see it. I can appreciate well-done images, subtle or not, but I don’t ascribe any virtue to either approach.
So, strong, even over-saturated colors might imply the child’s mind, so I leave you with a quote from a movie (I’ll leave it to someone else to name it). Billy Crystal is talking to his ex-wife. She says “When are you going to grow up?” Billy sez: “I don’t like grownups.”
