Black and White and Color Photography

Exhibition Text (2015)

Questions and Thoughts

• Black-and-white or grayscale. Black and White, or Bianco e Nero, or Noir et Blanc. I lean - without fanaticism - towards black and white, perhaps because the paper, as a base, is white.
• Black and white is also a color, since white is everything and black is nothing (or again, everything).
• Color photography is seductive. And this makes it dangerous. It requires greater composure to be properly appreciated.
• Everyone believes that color photography is more picturesque. Perhaps because painting has colors. I believe, on the contrary, that black and white is more picturesque because it allows for more extreme and less realistic interventions. Although in the end, I don’t think that photography in general is picturesque.
• It is not easy to judge (and even less to choose) a black and white photograph, when you see it (as happens in this exhibition) next to a color one. Color charms and carries away. Black and white, on the other hand, can carry you away with its form, which easily impresses. In general, anything that exerts charm requires attention.
• I have the impression that the photographer first chooses his photo and then thinks whether to keep it in color or turn it black and white. Because in the final analysis, color is also part of the form, like all the processing. And the form has the role of highlighting the content, hence it is confused with it.
• I have noticed that nowadays photographers prefer color photographs, perhaps because they have tired of black and white over the years and it's natural for someone to flirt with the new. Painters, on the other hand, seem to prefer black and white, perhaps because they do not understand photography, and they look for features that differentiate it from painting.
• Painting uses color as material. The color itself is the subject or part of it. This is not the case in photography. The sea can be blood red in a painting. But if it is in a photograph, then the viewer will look for the shark. The colors in a photograph are important as reference points. Therefore, differences in printing are not catastrophic. But as soon as someone sees a great painting live for the first time, they understand what they have missed all the years they only saw it in books.
• In a color photograph, every object refers to something specific. The blue of the sea is the sea, and the green of the grass is grass. But in a black and white photograph, the sea and the grass are shades of grey, whose placement in the photograph refers to their real essence. The task for the photographer is to lead the sea and the grass to a different value from what everyone attributes to them in real life. This, however, must be done through a realistic description (since this is what photography is) and within the limits and constraints of the photographic frame (since the battle is fought within it). All the above operate differently in a color versus a black and white version, resulting in a different photograph in each case.
• The first fear of photographers (mainly of the post-war era) towards color had to do with the threat that in the eyes of most constituted the -usually colorful- photography of advertising and fashion. Now that advertising and fashion have reconciled -through the concept- with the artistic world, this specific fear is unfounded. A response that can counter this fear, or rather shift it to a broader field, is that the threat does not lie in the use of color, but in the confusion that the primacy of the concept has caused in the art world.
• The second fear of photographers towards color had (and has) to do with the threat that in the eyes of some constitutes the accurate representation of the world through photography, which they think diminishes their own creative intervention. Therefore, anything that makes the representation more faithful (thus the color) can only be their enemy. A response that can counter this fear is that the closer to the representation the photograph is, the greater is the challenge for its transcendence, hence the more likely the creation of a great work.
• The third fear of photographers towards color had (and has) to do with the threat that in the eyes of some constitutes painting, for which color is an identity element. But this was the case from the beginning of the history of photography. That's why the term "pictorialism" always had a negative connotation. Some photographers felt and feel diminished in front of painters, resulting in either trying to stand out from them or trying to mimic them by adopting the respective artistic trends and practices. The sudden mixing of people from the art world with zero or minimal knowledge about photography exacerbated the problem. A response that can counter this fear is that admiration and respect for every art (and for anything in this world) presupposes recognizing (and therefore admiring and respecting) the peculiarities and differences rather than the similarities.
• Photography has reality as its primary material (while painting just uses it). Painting has color as its primary material (while photography just uses it). The painting is a unique original and has material and historical presence, while a photograph is always a copy of a non-existent original. Digital technology helps to understand these differences. And the photographic contemplation it provoked about the use of color and black and white is in this direction.
• Some advocate for color because reality is colorful. This essentially means that for them, photography is nothing more than a copy of the world and that the photographer should each time adopt whatever new technological find imitates reality more faithfully (three-dimensional image, aromatic additions, etc.). The problem is that this competition of photography with reality will always be at the expense of the former since the latter will remain the original.
• Opinions differ regarding which type of photography (color or black and white) is harder or easier to succeed. I believe that each has its own risks and ease. In black and white, the photographer has to fight with the preliminary abstraction that constitutes the conversion of a colorful world into black and white. However, this abstract quality of black-and-white photography, combined with the exaggeration of processing it allows, makes it more easily acceptable to the viewer. On the contrary, in color, the photographer has to struggle with the provocative realism of the colors, without being able to exceed the description with processing, which cannot withstand exaggerations. However, the charm that color exerts due to its more convincing depiction ensures its acceptance by the viewer. Additionally, in the case of color, the photographer also has to struggle with the potential entrapment in a concept (something that fits color), as well as with the material (hence physical) presence of the color.
• The weapons of black-and-white photography function differently from those of color photography to achieve a mediocre, but easily acceptable, photograph. However, a great photograph, whether black and white or color, will be achieved in the same way, obeying forces that transcend the surface of colors. And only the photographer himself can discover this way.
• The photographer can preselect color or black and white for all his work or for a specific part of it. He can also mix color and black-and-white photographs or present them separately. He can also use the same photograph, sometimes in color and sometimes in black and white. As long as everything remains at the level of artistic choices and is not due to dogmatism or fixation.
• When we photograph, we always see the world in color, since that is how it is. And this was always the case, regardless of the film loaded in the camera. When retrospectively we choose the image of our own photographic world, then we will select (since we now have this ability) whether our entire world, or the world of this particular photograph, or of this particular series of photographs, we want to be colorful or black and white.
• Digital photography is presented to us in color. Therefore, the conversion always goes from color to black and white and not the opposite. So, just as the real color of the world is converted into the color of our photograph, so we convert - if we want - the color of our photograph into black-and-white tones. The real colors of the world are forgotten immediately as soon as we leave real life. Only then can we judge whether the new, realistic - but artificial - depiction needs colorful or black-and-white tones.
• It is possible that the period we are going through corresponds to the last spasms of black-and-white photography before its death. But this death rattle can last a very long time until the possible end and will certainly be capable of producing great photographs.

Plato Rivellis

Curator of the exhibition and president of the “Photographic Circle”