P3D RE: P3D PanX &Tech Pan

["Brown, Fritz LABS" <brownf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John Toeppen wrote:

;This kind of processing effort may be worthwhile for making holograms or
;carbon transfers but why give up color in your slides?
;Velvia is just too good.  If quality results are your goal use slow
;color film.  Pardon me for rolling in my own concept of "purist"
;stereo.  Please prove me wrong and post your examples.
;Some Kodak and Ilford slide films have pastel colors that are nice in
;winter if you want to mute your colors and still use commercial
;processes.
;I could see where contact printing large negatives could be very nice in
;B&W. Certainly, some of the old stereo cards are quite impressive
;contact prints.  A Brewster style viewer could be used to view twin 8 x
;10s"


OK,  I expect that this is a bit of a troll,  but I am compelled to reply.
Why shoot black and white instead of color in general?  This is one of the
great unanswerable questions of all time.  There are as many reasons for
shooting black and white as there are black and white photographers.  For
many of us there is an expressive quality to a monochromatic image that
cannot be produced in color.  The rich tonality that can be obtained in a
well executed black and white image cannot be duplicated in color.  A well
done black and white image has a sensual quality that has to be experienced
to be appreciated.  If you haven't done so I urge you to go view the work of
any of the masters (Adams, Weston,  Cartier-Bresson, et al.) to see what the
possibilities of black and white really are.  And don't just look at
reproductions in a book,  see the originals if you can to understand the
expressive nature of a well done print.

Why shoot black and white transparencies?  On the first hand come the same
reasons that one may shoot for black and white prints.  The difference in
the expressive nature of black and white versus color.  Secondly,  a black
and white trancparency viewed on a light box has a luminous quality that a
black and white print can't match.  That whole transmitted versus reflected
light difference shines through (no pun intended....... OK you caught me,
the pun was intended).  Also a transparency has a greater dynamic range than
does a print.  the tonality of a transparency cannot be approached by a
print.

Why shoot black and white stereo?  It is another means of exploring your
subject photographically.  It is a means of expressing your own
interpretation of an image.  Some subject matter simply lends itself to a
monochromatic image.  To this I suggest subject matter such as antique farm
equipment, stone buildings,  desert landscapes,  human figure studies,  and
many others.  One often has to work at obtaining the image desired, but it
can truely be an expressive medium.

As far as posting my work,  I have neither a scanner nor a web site to place
images on.  Even if I did,  it wouldn't be able to do justice to a
transparency.  Look at the color images that are on the web, then go look at
your own color transparencies and you will see that looking at a real slide
is a much more satisfying and sensual experience.  The same goes for black
and white.  For anyone that is in the Close Up Stereo Folio,  I am placing
two black and white images in the current round.  One is a hand tinted image
of a daisy and the other is of a detail of an antique hay rake.  I make no
claims to be a master of the quality of those I mentioned above,  but I do
claim that black and white, in my hands and the hands of others,  can be a
wonderfully expressive medium.

 -Fritz M. Brown