How do YOU see?

[scott]

Hi all -

I've joined a number of photo groups on FB (LF, BUG, etc.). I'm having confirmed something that I've suspected for some time - I not only prefer, but see, in black and white when shooting film. I'm not color blind, but when I'm composing, or viewing as the case may be, I generally see a scene through a B&W prism. Every now and again someone on one of these groups posts something on color film. Always takes me aback. Makes me wonder why? I mean, some scenes scream for color renditions, but (even though I have plenty of color film) I just automatically push that into the "digital" bin. I much prefer seeing how a photo is conveyed on film in monochrome now, gradations of gray. I'm not sure when this happened, but I can't deny it anymore.

Am I the only one? I mean, I have nothing against color per se, just automatically assume everything is black and white. Probably some deeper meaning there...

Scott

[alexvaras]

For me very few photos (that I take myself) demand being taken not in BW.
I’m very bad at color postproduction or my lab does a terrible job scanning, I don’t know yet, still last colour film I use was exactly as I was aiming, I need to post the whole session.

I don’t know when or where I read this:
Colour is for advertising/fashion and BW are for feelings.

Honestly I don’t know how I see the photos before taking them, maybe I do the zero saturation in my head and I don’t realize... thinking on this I try to take a photo of a subject (whatever it’s) and only if the colors are basically the subject or main part of the photo I consider doing it im color.
My fridge has 0 color films now, I guess I should take a couple

[wlewisiii]

Having gone completly over to digital, it's not the same problem. I generally have my Leica set to save RAW and a B&W jpg. While I am out and about, I work mostly from shapes and light than from the color or lack thereof. Sometimes I'll see a specific image that screams to be in color or in monochrome but far more often for me that happens once it's imported into CaptureOne.

It's funny, I do have some very marginal color vision in red/green. Not color blind but enough that it kept me out of military flight school for example. In film I did tend to do better with B&W as a result, my love being Plus-X. But now that I can work with both and flip between so much easier, that pre-shooting visualization isn't as limiting as it used to be.

[Brazile]

At this point, I'm pretty set on B&W for film and color for digital and having tried the other way around find that the opposite doesn't work for me.

I really like shooting B&W but often seem to have better luck with color. Think I have more work to do training my eye as you seem to have done.

Robert

[Julio1fer]

Most of what I shoot is B&W on film, so that is what I try to see these days.

[scott]

Thanks for your thoughts, guys. It's interesting to me to hear about this aspect of process, which I've never really thought of as far as other people's experience goes. Also interesting that it's not unique to push color off to digital (if one still shoots film).

I've noticed in the past (going back years) that I have no recall at all when I've composed on the ground glass what the color data for the image were. Just remember the image in B&W. Not saying at all that my B&W mental rendition is accurate to what the film will reproduce, but it's at least in some sort of conversion in my head.

Please, let's keep this discussion going!

[titrisol]

It comes and goes, for years my eyes were in BW mode looking for contrasts, tones and textures
Lately, I've been taking pictures of my daughters marching band so I had to switch to color and movement

It took me a while to do the switch, but this AM as I was walking with a BW film camera I couldn't see in BW anymore and had to put effort into it.

[GrahamS]

I no longer assign B&W to film, and colour to digital. I only use digital, and unless a scene obviously demands to be recorded in monochrome, I shoot in colour and make the mono/colour decision in post. There was a time in my life, between when I was around 8 years old and when I turned 18, when everything was B&W. From then on and for the next 20 years, I only shot colour for family snapshots while my serious work remained B&W. When I obtained access to my own colour laboratory, I began using colour for serious work, mainly portraiture and landscapes. Now-days, in a digital world, I have the ability to choose which medium to use, AFTER i have pressed the button. How cool is that?

Just for interest, here are two versions of the same image. In my opinion, this image just begs to be rendered in monochrome.

[titrisol]

I agree, this image screams to be monochromatic
That conversion can go in several directions, the moment I saw the red anchors in the reddish gravel my mind went to a orange or red filter which would render the sky darker and the red lighter (channel mixer conversion)
I'd love to find an easy way to tell the software to use a Y1, Y2, or R filter

[GrahamS]

I'd love to find an easy way to tell the software to use a Y1, Y2, or R filter

. With Silver FX Pro or Perfectly Clear, amongst others, you can.