P3D Re: Colour versus black and white

["Oleg Vorobyoff" <olegv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dale Walsh wrote:

>Since we are talking about art and photography issues, I would like
to
>have your thoughts on why one should use colour images instead of
black
>and white ones?
>

No one seems to have bitten on this one.  At the risk of sounding
pedantic, let me try.

I think of art as something that shunts the mind into a kind of
parallel world where a lot of things are similar to the actual world
but artificial enough that one is not overstimulated.  The idea is to
stimulate an "artistic" reaction in the viewer rather than an actual
reaction.  Black and white automatically provides a degree of
separation from reality and is thereby useful to an artist.  A color
photograph has the danger of being too literal for artistic purposes.
The viewer is likely to take it simply as a document of an
actual situation.  However, with some care, color itself can be used
as an element of abstraction working in support of an artistic
reaction in the viewer.  Personally, I find more artistic
possibilities in color than in black and white and can usually find
ways to suppress color's anti-artistic tendencies.

So where does stereo photography stand as an art?  Not only is it
generally in color, but even the usual photographic abstraction of
loss of depth is missing.  Nonetheless, it seems to work as an art.  I
think it is because stereo emphasizes different element of abstraction
in photography - that of stopping time.  When we experience something
so real as a stereo photograph we almost expect it to move.  But not
even a blade of grass moves.  As for color, in stereo I think it
usually works to strengthen the "frozen in time" effect.

Oleg Vorobyoff



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