Color or Black and White

I was out hiking last Sunday and stumbled into some marshy grasslands that were a popular hunting area, judging by the numerous deer stands. I’ve never understood why hunters would want to sit up in a stand and shoot deer pretty much like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s not particularly sporting. I’ve asked a few over the years and the common answer is something along the lines of “you think it’s easy sitting up there before dawn freezing your ass off?” I don’t say it, but well, yea I think it’s easy, at least as easy as dressing appropriately for the occasion, which most hunters tend to do. Of course if the answer is to get inexpensive lean, grass fed meat to last a year, I’m okay with that, and actually consider doing it myself every year, which I would if I weren’t too lazy to go to all the hassle of getting a license, buying ammo, and dealing with the weight and messiness of a dead deer. I’ve got nothing against hunting, especially hunting deer, which I see as a community service in these parts where so many people are injured or killed by running into them. I ran into one myself once and managed to stay disciplined and just hit it rather than run off the road into a ravine. That was no fun, not dealing with the insurance and auto body repair, and certainly not seeing the poor thing suffer. I called the cops to report it and one came out and put it out of its misery.

Anyhoo, the purpose of this little story isn’t to relive that trauma. As I was saying, I was out hiking and came across a marshy grasslands that had several deer stands and I thought I could provide a nice little lesson about color vs. black and white photography, and the difference between a photograph and merely a picture of a thing. So here are two photos to consider:

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My expectation at the time was that the black and white picture would obviously be a photograph, and just as obviously, the color photo would be a picture of a thing. Now I’m not sure that they are both not either pictures of things or photographs; or maybe even the color one is a photo and the black and white is a picture of a thing. But no, ultimately I think the black and white one qualifies as a photograph and the color remains a picture of a thing.

The most common strategy for making a good color photograph is to limit the color palette, to essentially make it a two, or three max, color photo. This gives it a somewhat similar effect as black and white by minimizing distractions and creating color contrast the allows the eye to focus on specific areas of the photo. Sometimes that can give the illusion that an image is a photograph rather than a picture of a thing, but sometimes it can actually elevate it to a photograph. In this case I think it’s just trickery. I don’t see anything deeper in this than a picture of a deer stand. There is no mystery, no hint that anything deeper is afoot.

There is mystery aplenty, however, in the black and white rendition. Technically, I’m still using contrast to pop the putative subject, but it’s not really clear that the deer stand is the actual subject, even though it’s literally centered in the frame. I think this photo invites the mind to go beyond the deer stand and wander around the brush and the trees behind it. I can’t quite pinpoint the feeling it evokes, which is the most definite way to identify a photograph vs. a picture of a thing.

Does that make any sense?

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