{"id":20144,"date":"2018-11-05T12:12:34","date_gmt":"2018-11-05T17:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/?p=20144"},"modified":"2021-12-02T20:55:29","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T20:55:29","slug":"problems-calling-bw-photographs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnpaulcaponigro.com\/blog\/20144\/problems-calling-bw-photographs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Problems With Calling Them B&W Photographs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Suffusion<\/a>
\nYou may not think there\u2019s a problem. You may think you know the difference. It\u2019s obvious right? But is it? Do you? After a lifetime spent in the arts, I find photographers\u2019 ability to describe color woefully limited, and this is never truer than when describing \u201cblack-and-white\u201d images.<\/p>\n

Most antique processes are black and white, right? Certainly, silver gelatin is black and white. But what if you tone it? Is a platinum print black and white or brown and white? Is a cyanotype black and white or blue and white? What about hand-tinted photographs? They were black and white but then they became colorful again, but it\u2019s a different kind of color, isn\u2019t it? And if only a little color is added is it still black and white? At what point does an image become black and white?<\/p>\n

The problem is that having only two terms \u2013\u00a0color and black and white \u2013 for a wide array of color palettes limits not only our communication but more importantly our perception and thinking.<\/p>\n