Revisiting Colour

The biggest learning point from the Leeds workshop related to my current working practice for Social Documentary.  I have made an early decision to work in B&W for the course, hoping to explore more deeply what the medium can deliver and to better parallel the work of many social documentarians, such as Frank, Clark, or Winogrand.  Clearly this also meant I was going against the more recent tradition for colour in documentary work.

I progressed quite happily reveling in the contrast and structure that mono brings to imagery, right up until arriving in Leeds.  I took 12 photos with me to share during the portfolio review; printed on matte paper these were very dark, deep blacks contrasting with the highlights.  This was a risk, I wanted to explore this facet of B&W and was concerned I had gone too far.  Well that was obvious from the get go, although not helped by the poor lighting of the room we used.  What came as a surprise was the tutors very blunt question, why was I working in B&W?  My somewhat feeble reasoning did not dig me out of the hole I was in.  A little later in the day I shared a couple of photobooks that I was also seeking an opinion on.  That nailed it, in particular "U", my study of the Munich underground.

His feedback can be boiled down in the following terms:

1. Black and White needs to be used for a good reason - I did not have a good enough reason
2. He often suggest that students work in mono to develop better understanding of structure, U demonstrated that I was there already
3. Modern documentary photography is largely colour, after all we must document a coloured world
4. Perhaps most damning of all was a quiet statement that he saw himself as a colour photographer.  The implication being that it is important to understand your photographic self.  I also see myself as a colour photographer, but one playing with mono.

So where does this leave me, I have received advice to rethink my current strategy from a senior tutor.  Other students have made similar observations and I have taken the opportunity to request specific feedback from a couple of people I trust.  In each case I asked for comments on whether the following set works better in B&W or Colour:

In each case the clear feedback was that one or two images were better as B&W, but that for most colour was preferred.  This is especially important as these images were selected for their B&W strengths.  Returning to colour left me with images that I may otherwise have rejected, i.e. even images selected for their strengths in B&W looked better as colour.

Luckily I am working in RAW and so retain the flexibility to switch later in the day, however, it is not so simple.  I am developing a set of images over a prolonged period, how the set develops will change based on the final destination of the photograph, colour or B&W.  Colour will influences how the photos are sequenced, it changes how I crop them, and finally whether I even use an image.  In the above sequence, the image of the man squatting next to a guy playing guitar is a favorite of mine in B&W, however, the red sweater kills it as a colour image.

Balancing all the inputs I have so far, my head is now nodding towards Colour, but not without reservation.  The goal of any course is to learn and develop.  This might be the biggest learning so far, I am a colour photographer! Or maybe not?

Wow, how wishy-washy and on the fence can I be?  OK decision time.  For assignment 1 I am going to stick with B&W and submit it as such.  For assignment 2, I am going to revert to colour, the Oktoberfest deserves a colour treatment.  Assignment 4 will be left up in the air for the time being, however, I will start working in colour in the blog.  Once I get closer to the essay stage I will revisit this decision.

Going to Leeds was well worth it, this is a small but important breakthrough for me.