Black + White Vs. Color

Newsletter + On This Day

Several times a week, I receive YouTube comments from folks who LOVE black and white photos. WAY more than color photos.

When I see the same comment repeated by several folks, I tend to noodle on it. And often while I’m noodling, YouTube slyly recommends a video to help me noodle some more. The video above is an example…one I highly recommend to anyone who likes to geek out on film and photo history. It’s entertaining and informative!

To my eye, black and white filmmaking and photography have a timeless charm and evoke emotions that color sometimes misses. From the moody shadows of film noir to the crisp lines of classic portraits, black and white strips away distractions, allowing us to focus on texture, contrast, and emotion. There’s something raw and pure about it—it’s like the essence of the scene or subject is distilled into its most dramatic form.

But then, in the mid-to-late 1930s, Technicolor burst onto the scene, and suddenly, the world of entertainment could be (for a price) be bathed in rich, saturated hues.

Color opened up new possibilities for storytelling, setting moods in ways black and white simply couldn’t. From the magical land of The Wizard of Oz (1939) to the vivid glamour of Singin’ in the Rain (1952), Technicolor brought a vibrancy that gave life to our cinematic dreams. On the photography side, Kodachrome (and similar color films) gave photographers more options to create their work as well.

So much of what we see today, made with much more modern technology, is based on the same color principles and processes that have been around for decades, if not centuries. I think it’s fascinating to understand how the art and commerce of craft of both film, photo, and (eventually) video influenced each other.

So, which do I prefer? Black and white or color? That’s a tough one. I’m drawn to the nostalgia and elegance of black and white, but there’s no denying the emotional impact of color when used well. Both have their place. Black and white feels timeless, while color draws us into a world that feels more immediate and alive. I guess I love them both for what they offer—different lenses through which we can view the world.

Which speaks to YOU most?

Thanks for reading!
Clint

P.S. In case you missed it, I have made a playlist of some of my colorization experiments. JUST ADD COLOR includes so many of my favorite images!

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ON THIS DAY = SEPTEMBER 5

BIRTHDAYS

• JESSE JAMES (1847)
  Outlaw + Guerilla Leader

• AMY BEACH (1867)
  Composer + Pianist

• JOHN CAGE (1912)
  Composer + Music Theorist

• FREDDIE MERCURY (1946)
  Singer-Songrwiter

EVENTS

• Great Fire of London ends leaving 13K houses destroyed and 8 dead. (1666)

• Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane is released. (1941)

• Violet Ellen Katherine Jones pretends to be a man so she may marry Joan Lee in the Catholic Church. Rev. D. Clark performs the ceremony. Rev. Clark informs the Bishop of his suspicions. The couple is caught and taken to court where they admit to making false statements on their marriage license. They’re fined £25. (1954)

• First color video recording on magnetic videotape was successful. The design was introduced by Apex and RCA whose engineers had developed it from the Ampex black and white recorded model. An Evening with Fred Astaire is now the oldest surviving television network color videotape. (1958)

• The television series N.Y.P.D. was the first television series in America to air an episode with a gay theme. It was entitled “Shakedown.” The story focused on police tracking down a man blackmailing gay men, prompting several suicides. “Shakedown” was the show’s premiere episode on ABC. (1967)

• Unitarian Universalist minister James Stoll is the first ordained minister in the U.S. or Canada to publicly come out. He did so at the annual Continental Conference of Student Religious Liberals on September 5, 1969 at the La Foret Conference Center near Colorado Springs, Colorado. He led the effort that convinced the Unitarian Universalist Association to pass the first-ever gay rights resolution in 1970. He founded the first counseling center for gays and lesbians in San Francisco. In the 1970s he established the first hospice on Maui. He was president of the San Francisco chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union in the 1990s. He died at the age of 58 from complications of heart and lung disease exacerbated by obesity and a life-long smoking habit. (1969)

• Columbia “decriminalizes” “homosexual behavior,” changing it from a felony to a misdemeanor. The maximum penalty is reduced to “only” three years. (1970)

• The Homomonument, a pink granite triangle memorial to LGBT victims of the Nazis, is dedicated in Amsterdam. The Homomonument is a memorial in the center of Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands. It commemorates all gay men and lesbians who have been subjected to persecution because of their homosexuality. Opened on September 5, 1987, it takes the form of three large pink triangles made of granite, set into the ground so as to form a larger triangle, on the bank of the Keizersgracht canal near the historic Westerkerkchurch. The Homomonument was designed to “inspire and support lesbians and gays in their struggle against denial, oppression and discrimination.” It was the first monument in the world to commemorate gays and lesbians who were killed by the Nazis. Later, similar monuments were realized in a number of cities all around the world. (1987)

• ACT UP activists unfurl a giant condom at the home of N.C. Senator Jesse Helms who opposed sex education and AIDS research funding. Helms wrote the law barring HIV+ people from entering the U.S. That law was repealed in 2012. (1991)

• Transgender principal Genna Suraci starts the school year at the Port Ewen, N.Y. Career & Technical Center uneventfully, like any other school year. Over the summer, she’d officially transitioned from Gary to Genna. The school apparently took in stride their transsexual leader’s transition. Student Kaitlyn Walker, 17, was quoted in the New York Times saying, “It doesn’t matter what happened, it’s the person inside. It’s the same person. It doesn’t really matter if you change the outside.” (2007)