In A Monochrome World
Life is quite funny and so many don't even realize it. Those of us, who are on Hive and interested in photography are experimenting with different filters, to get the best results (by our standards of course). Should I use black and white? Would the photos look better if colors are taken away? Should I increase brightness? Should I add more contrast? Or should I use sepia to make it more vintage and interesting?
Imagine not having this option as all you can see is monochrome. Have you thought of that? Have you ever tried to imagine what your life would be as a photographer without seeing colors? I kind of do. I know people who are living with conditions that preventing them from seeing or distinguishing different colors and even if sometimes the stories they tell are funny, it's nothing to laugh about. You need to learn to live with it, to find a solution to manage your daily tasks that require seeing those colors and so on.
Today I decided to post some black and white photos, which I don't do too often (maybe I should), but I think it's time for me to appreciate the possibility of being able to see colors the proper way.
Monochrome is my obvious choice, when it comes to architecture and I'd like to think I'm not alone with this choice. Once the colors are not influencing your eyes, you can focus on the light and on the architecture itself.
The funny thing is, there was a time when only black and white was available. My dad used to be an amateur photographer and color films were a luxury, available only for the lucky ones and only years later, years after he started photographing. I remember when I was a kid, he used to do the whole process, starting from taking photos, to developing the film and the photos on paper too.
Back in those days, we had no computer, there was no photo shop, no photo cropping, no filters, no erasing, no nothing. You took the photo and that was it. Only professional photo studios had the equipment and skills to retouch photos.
I remember once my cousin needed some photos for some document/project and came to my dad for help and he gave me the camera, the light measuring device (yeah, you needed that too, in order to set the camera light correctly) and sent us to take photos. No pressure, right?
I did well, in case you're wondering, no out of focus, blurry photos and my cousin had her head and all her body parts on the photo 😆 Dad said I did ok for my first test.
My biggest worry, and his too, was that I'd waste the film and come home with any usable photo. Those films were not cheap and not available all the time either.
Back in those days, you wouldn't have to worry, that your blouse doesn't match your hair color, or your lipstick were worries that came later when it came to photography.
Without wanting to hurt anyone, I think today only the dumb ones can't take photos. All you need is a decent camera (mobile phone is good too), keep the camera steady and that's all. You can edit the photo after and fix what is not right. Is that a skill? Have people lost their ability to take good photos? I think it depends on the individual.
So today monochrome is a choice for most of us, rather than a necessity, but there are still those, who were not given this choice at birth. The were left to live in a monochrome world. I personally don't know anyone in this situation from close, just a distant relative, who I only meet occasionally and we don't speak about this, but I know someone who's confusing green with brown and can't really distinguish between shades and I know what a struggle life can be sometimes. But even so, they make things work, they even take photos, it doesn't stop them from living a normal life. It's just that their normal is different from our normal. Is it a problem? Only if you make it to be. It's a matter of perspective.
I for one I'm grateful I have the luxury of seeing colors.
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Neat how we take for granted our ability to see colour! Seeing pictures with the vibrant hues is nice but I do enjoy the contrast of a good black & white photo.
I never take the time to strip the colour out of my photos but it is neat to see one that appears to be monochrome next to one that is actually black & white.
We tend to take a lot of things for granted, unfortunately and only start to appreciate them when those can be taken away from us. Nice shorts, both versions.
When I was growing up we had a dark room in our house. My dad mainly only shot in black and white because he is color blind and he would never be able to get the colors right if he tried to develop and print the photos himself. When we did have color shots we needed processed, we sent them out like everyone else. Because of that, I have always had an affinity for black and white photography.
My dad also set up his dark room in the bathroom and we were not allowed to use it for hours, only with permission and I hated that.
Having a color blind dad must have been a challenge on so many levels, But I'm glad he still did photography.
Yeah, he still takes photos today too, but not as much as he used to. That would be horrible having to wait to use the bathroom!
😆 You can't even imagine the fights we had.
I would hate to just see in monochrome. As far as being blind to certain colors, I am one of those that has trouble differentiating different shades of green and brown as well. Shades of blue also give me challenges.
Now that you know what colors look like and what a fun it is to see colors, yes, I would hate it too. But so many are born color blind, so they have no idea, they only know black and white.
Have you been diagnosed?
Yes. Found out later in my military service. Was fine when I first went in though. Had good color vision then.
Wow, that's interesting. So is your condition not since births, but due to deterioration of vision?
I guess it’s from deterioration. My eyes are bad .
i honestly never make black and white photos, i just prefer to catch the moment the way it is... but i do like some monocromatic pictures, depends on the subject and the context really, but i prefer to see others works on this matter
all i remember of the old times were when you had a camera with a single roll inside, you would just click and never know how it came out until you printed them, and the camera had a sort of counter to help you count how many shots left
Exactly. I remember my parents going abroad from time to time and coming home with a few rolls of films, then my dad angry because some of the photos were blurry and out of focus. In those days you could not afford to take two shots of everything.
Yeah you even had to carefully pick what you wanted to shoot, not like that you could do everything... And also when changing roll be super careful with the sun!
I am also very grateful to see the colours, because I love colours but you know? My mother and brother confuse brown with green and my brother often asks me when in doubt about a colour. I didn't have anyone who took black and white pictures either, but in the time when my grandparents were little they took pictures like that and I have seen many, some with small retouches like on the cheeks or lips of women...
It would be sad to see in black and white... with so many beautiful colours. But some people have no choice.
That is interesting as I knew this is mostly common among males, not females, but it looks like it's not excluded.
When you're born color blind, you don't know what you miss and I don't think you can lose the ability to see colors after you're born, so you're safe.
I think that's why I like them so much and why I like photography so much. My brother confuses it more, but I think I inherited it from my mother... they ask me when they have doubts. Women see more color ranges... at least that's what science says.
I like the church with small churches on the church!
They look good in black and white
I do like monochrome (B&W) photos a LOT.
For the reason that photographs and making those shots become - as you also wrote - about the object, the light. When viewing B&W photos, we don't get distracted by the colours, we have more focus to - again - whatever is in the image.
I used to play around with self-developing photos back in the days. I always used B&W for this. Always in search for light and scenery that creates high contrasts since this is what I love, making still images interesting. Those days one needed to spend quality time to shoot a bunch of good photographs. These days, the art of taking pictures is lost, kinda. Still we can see the difference between the top notch professionals and the rest, but software is making everything so much easier for a much larger public to come up with great-looking shots. A shame on one hand, A great thing on the other hand. I kinda miss the days when all was analogue.
Exactly!
We never had that, but I'd have loved to try it out.
You're right about the art of taking quality photos is lost. As you say, we have a bunch of software to help us, but misusing them is also so easy and you get the opposite of what you should.
Another issue I see is the majority of people have no intention of improving. None, whatsoever. I see this in the photo community I'm managing. So many times I'm trying to reason with them, to not post low quality photos and instead of seeing some improvement, what I get is a fight, they trying to convince me that those photos are ok. Life is a learning curve, whatever you do, your goal should be to be better every day, but unfortunately so many are not thinking like that.
Hahaha I saw one of those this morning, you muted one from a Venezuelan lady.
Not too bad posts, she done one in Collectors community which was ok.
But yeah, here photographs much below par, at least not close to amateur level, let alone to professional level.
Users are complaining when they get muted, I have all the experience with that in one of the communities I manage.
Even with same clear community rules, muted posts/users usually started to fight, or to twist the rules in their favour.
Some even continues to post whatever was muted.
I see they don't spare you either. I could write a book about this and most likely it would be entertaining, if it wouldn't be sad. Really sad. Even though I'm used to it, still can't understand their mentality. Probably never will. Maybe I will write a post 😬 What do you think, would anyone read it?
Some will read such a post, perhaps even those who agree with you.
Some may become angry and write associated comments to such post. But perhaps that will not happen, since they make themselves known more to others, they do not have an objective view and pick up fights for the wrong reasons and not in their right, whatever 'right' is here in HIVE 😉
This is an excellent post about photography, which talks about using monochrome to appreciate colors! I always read something like this, but the other way around, so it's new to me! 😄
🤣🤣🤣 What a mission! And an amazing way to learn how to use a light meter. I remember those times; I wasn't taking photos then, but I had friends who were, using film, a light meter, and then the chemical development process!
Excellent article, and by the way, I loved this photo!
😍 It's one I would have captured if I'd passed by there!!!!
100 points shot!
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