Triple Awesome! (black and white)

Good Evening, my Darling,

I am home from Pearl's, just relaxing. Earlier today, I saw your photo, posted by the singer James, the shot of the band onstage with the giant audience out in front of them. That is a great shot! It really made my day what he said about it, to the effect of "a picture is worth a thousand words" and that he didn't even have enough words to describe how that picture made him feel.

So, my girl, please take a moment and absorb what he is saying there. You did that!

And that is beyond awesome.

I am super stoked that you did indeed get a photo pass for that show. Have you ever been at a show before with that big an audience? It's really something, eh? :)

I am really proud of what you've done, and super happy too. Also - and this is super important - I think it is triple-awesome that you shot it in black and white. I will write more about that aspect later on, back at Pearl's, because I wanna think about exactly why a black & white shot in that situation is more awesome than a color shot. And it is, and there are reasons for that.

I see just now your post via Emily Tebbets, and I'll bet you can relate to her words in that post. :)
I'll bet you are glad you followed your heart's desire with photography and videography and music and overall creativity. All you had to do was believe in yourself, and you did and you are still doing so.

Things are looking pretty good, I'd say.  :)

Again, big time congrats on that shot, and I will write more later on at Pearl's. Usual schedule for me tonight.

I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

(back in a bit)

12:10am : Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby. For a minute there, I thought maybe you traveled to the Minnesota show, too, because you had a couple of posts related to that. But then I see other posts by you and I figure if you were at the concert you probably would be busy taking pics, so I am guessing you are at home. But getting back to the use of black and white in a shot like yours, why is it (for me, anyway) more powerful as a b&w picture than it would be in color? Now don't get me wrong - it would still be good in color, but why does b & w make it stand out?

Here is what I think, and I may have stated something like this before: in a color shot, you would simply have the distraction of the color. And so - very subtly, mind you - people would notice the blue sky, and the small patches of color in the clothes of the audience. Ditto the band members, and the black vinyl covering on amps, etc. Just all the variations, large and small, of color in the shot.

And what happens, in a shot like that, is that a color picture would look more like "real life".

And in photographs, especially of an event, that is not always a good thing. Because "real life" can equate with The Everyday World, i.e blue sky, people at a rock concert, equipment on stage, etc.

And the Everyday World is what people see every day. So it's a subtle effect, and most people viewing the photo wouldn't even notice it - without it being brought up. But color, in that particular shot, would add the distraction of The Everyday.....

Now what does black and white do, in that situation?

This is what I think : it removes the distraction of The Everyday - i.e. what people are used to seeing - and it reverses the effect. It makes the individual components of the picture stand out.

The Band. The Stage. The Audience. The Equipment.

It turns the photo into pure image, something captured rather than something seen everyday (i.e. not rock concerts per se, but the aforementioned blue sky, colors of clothes, etc.)

What's more, it sort of documents the image, sets it in time as a frozen moment, the way great b & w photos in newspapers used to do. Nothing captured a particular moment in time like a b & w shot, with it's documented feel.

The Black & White image, in particular cases, reduces or eliminates the distraction of Everyday Life, and thus makes the photograph seem to be something captured in a moment of time. Something that has been documented.

So that is my take on the use of b & w in particular shots.

Interestingly enough, my final project for my photo class in 12th grade, was a poster-sized photo I made with a concert theme. I can't recall the size anymore, but it was probably something like 24 X 18 inches, whatever the biggest sheet of photo paper was at the time, at least at my high school, lol. The basic shot I printed on that very large sheet of photo paper was a crowd shot at a stadium concert. The concert was in San Bernadino (100 miles away) at a place called Orange Show Stadium. The bands were Brownsville Station ("Smokin' In The Boy's Room"), Lynyrd Skynyrd, Peter Frampton and Black Sabbath. There were a lot of people there on the floor of the stadium, just like in your shot, and I had taken a pic entirely pointed at the crowd, looking backwards. So what I did for my final project was to enlarge that photo to giant size. It was a black and white shot, like "the crowd captured in time".

Then I cut 3x5 inch windows in the enlargement, using an exacto knife. Into those widows I taped color shots, taken at an entirely different concert - a Tommy Bolin show at The Roxy in Hollywood. But the effect was good. I had the giant b & w backdrop of the crowd (something captured in time), with the inset "live looking" color shots from the Bolin show.

I got an A on it, too, but it was the black and white backdrop shot that made the whole thing work.

I wish I could say I still had that large photo project. But things get lost over the years, in earthquakes and relocations, and what can you do, right?

Luckily, I know I still have both the b & w negative from the stadium crowd shot, and also the color slides from the Tommy Bolin show, so maybe one day I can recreate it........

And P.S. : also very important - don't get me wrong about color. Color shots are every bit as important and image-capturing as those taken in black and white. It's just that color captures in a different way, and the more you shoot with both techniques, the more you will discern the differences, especially in the context of your own style. For instance, you had a recent color shot of the guy from Starset that worked better in color - as you shot it - than it would have in b & w. The key is to shoot both and discern the difference.

At any rate, my Darling, that's my take for this evening!

Sweet Dreams and I will see you in the morn.  I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)