Scene of contrasting texture, geometry, color, light, focus point when shower curtain stands against tile wall.
Many forms of contrast present themselves in this morning picture lit by dull skies through the window. The eye passes all the information to the brain’s visual cortex to recognize the subjects and distinguish one part from the other by the many kinds of contrasting detail: brightness, focus plane, geometric vs. curvilinear, color saturations, and texture. Each of these layers of contrast can be looked at apart, but in the blink of an eye the mind forms an impression with all these together. So analytically separating these factors to ask which contributes most to the perception of contrast or difference may not shed new light on the way that a person notices sameness and absence of similarity. But there is no harm in exploring the relative weight of these many channels of contrast.
Color saturation – relative presence or absence of color
composition in grayscale (right) and full color (left): which version gives bigger contrast in curtain to wall?
Focus plane – where the eye rests most easily, in or out of focus
curtain focus (left) and both wall & curtain focused (right): which gives bigger contrast of curtain to wall?
Texture – where the eye rests most easily, on smooth or coarse surfaces
curtain fabric and tile wall: which surface stands out most to the eye?
Geometry – perpendicular tiles versus naturally curving lines
branches and leaves versus grid of wall tiles: which lines stand out most to the eye?
Light values (bright, dim) – which parts of the scene stand out or the reverse
some fill light on wall (right) versus less (left): which scene makes bigger curtain contrast?
Some readers may wish to pause and score their own response to these five layers, one by one. The writer’s experience is appended to give one person’s view. Even without taking the time to consider each illustration to discover the relative visual weight of one effect versus another, it is interesting to acknowledge that so many dimensions of visible characteristics can catch one’s eye and be the thing that makes the scene stand out in some way, contrasting to its surroundings. Something similar may be happening in other domains of one’s life: perception of familiar or strange sounds (see Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas 2022 This is What it Sounds Like), smells and tastes, as well as textures. In each domain the mind takes in the total impression, rather than weighing each layer that defines one thing relatively different to another.
While there can be intellectual delight in the pursuit of analytical layers and processes, perhaps it is the raw experience itself that is worth most. Seeing the many facets involved can be eye-opening, too, but only in the awareness of this complexity, the noticing of subjects in one’s vicinity, and the sensory impressions (recognition, responses, and resulting actions) does all this reflection and analysis matter. May readers be enriched by looking at this tangent about the many ways that contrasts contribute to first noticing and then appreciating a scene like this humble shower curtain and its tile wall in the morning light.
= Appendix =-=-=-=-= one person’s comparison of the layered contrasts
Color saturation – the vivid color of the shower curtain stands out from the dull tile wall Focus plane – when both wall and curtain have separate focal planes they contrast most Texture – the coarse weave of the curtain stands out from the smooth tile wall Geometry – the wall grid attracts the eye’s notice more urgently than the curtain’s curving lines Light values – the bigger range in light value makes a bigger contrast than for a smaller range
beer in stemware photo rotated to show curve of the glass, the deep color, and the bright background
Several contrasts appear in this photo, including curving wineglass versus perpendiculars of image frame and smaller linear segments inside the frame itself; dark draft versus bright air surrounding the glass; dry room versus liquid beer; canned beer versus wine in stemware; and cold contents versus warm surroundings. In each case the opposing quality makes each side of the pair stand out relative to its opposite. By comparison, when presenting a subject in neutral surroundings in which contrasts are not apparent, then the characteristics of the subject stand out much less dramatically. Something similar happens with salt & sweet, sweet & sour, vinegar & oil, crunchy and soft, hot & cold, and maybe pleasure & pain, strain & release, etc. In this photo the contrasts are conveyed visually. But in other situations other senses could supply the corresponding contrasts to amplify each side in the relationship.
Perhaps something analogous happens when thinking through a problem, contemplating future options, or daydreaming on a particular theme. In each case, by juxtaposing one subject with something contrasting, each side of the equation stands out all the more, thus making the thinking process more pronounced or magnified.
Section of shower curtain folds which reflect window light according to drape depth and colors juxtaposed.
As the morning light filtered through the bathroom blinds onto the shower curtain, the lines that define the vertical folds stood out unevenly. The light source was approximately the same in its intensity and color temperature, but the angle of the fabric changed the amount of reflective surface (including Angle of Incidence). At the left of center is the brightest vertical line since that gives maximum reflection as it faces the window directly. The fold a few inches to the right is much less distinct in the vertical line that is produced. Of course, the gap between the two folds gets almost no window light, hence the dim light value and murky detail that is visible.
Thinking about the scene, there is more than one way that contrast contributes to the sharp definition of the vertical line. At bottom center the sharp line is almost entirely caused by the amount of light, since the curtain fabric itself is mostly the same light blue composite background color, whether it is brightly lit or unlit altogether. At the center of the image is the black branch the bird perches on. This black contrasts the dimly lit strip of curtain with its continuous light blue background fabric pattern. So in addition to contrast caused by light reflectiveness, here is another way that one section of fabric stands apart from another. The sharp line defining the break between the two sections is due to contrasting color brightness; not just the surface reflectance angle and texture of the fabric, but specifically the property of one color to reflect more light than another (one absorbs more light energy than the other). A third means for contrast to amplify boundaries of one part against another is seen when opposite colors (on the Color Wheel) are set side by side, such as red on green. In this photo there is a glimpse of the contrast in the bird’s body of orange against blue. If, instead, the creature were light blue against dark blue, the difference of one part against the other would not seem as strikingly obvious as it in this photo.
One lesson to derive from this art-filled shower curtain in the morning light is about the multiple ways that lines can be defined and contrast can be expressed, sometimes in just one method, but other times in a combination of ways. Boundaries, outlines that act like simplified silhouettes of the complete subject, distinctions and divisions that are firmly held, all of these lines of separation depend on contrasts shown to separate one part from another. By noticing the multiple ways that perceived lines are amplified, it becomes easier to look more closely and see why that apparent difference of one part to the next is actually all connected in one continuous tissue of fabric. What looks like separateness in the mind’s eye could in reality turn out to be integrally connected and be made from the same stuff.
Detail from bank of snowplow pile in the noon light of January 12 (looking toward the sun; southwards)
The expression “listening to light” or its counterpart, “seeing the music,” seems like some sort of koan or an outbreak of synesthesia. But when used with a figurative meaning, the act of quietly observing one’s own automatic (emotional) responses to this visual experience does resemble the listening process; not using one’s ears necessarily, but instead paying attention with one’s whole awareness. At first I did not see what it was about the snow that spoke to me. After composing the shot, though, I recognized that the line formed by the silhouetted top of the snow pile against the dark line of the woods seemed to glow with added emphasis, calling out for me to notice it. On the small screen of the iPod Touch camera app the distinct glow from the sun’s backlighting that was intensified by the contrasting dark background was not noticeable, but seen in larger scale on the laptop when editing, this glow stood out clearly.
Direct and indirect (reflected) light from the sun’s backlighting on this snow pile around noon, Jan. 12
Near the first photo of the jagged silhouetted top of the snow pile, this second picture shows the stepped surfaces at the edge of the parking lot all highly reflective in white, but facing the sky and the sun at different angles. The result is a wide range of shadows and marbled bright spots. At the time, my response was a degree of visual interest sufficient to merit a snapshot composition. But the exact nature of the appeal was not fully formed in my mind. Looking at the image now, I would say that the span from dimmest to brightest is what speaks to me: it is far from being “high dynamic range,” but within a narrower span from bright to dark, this photo does seem to include all possible degrees of difference in the light values. An analogy would be a box of children’s crayons: compared to the most basic box of four colors, a deluxe pack of 64 colors is so much richer in its fine range of variations on the colors.
Soft blanket of snow smooths over the chunky surface of the snowplow’s heaped parking lot snow.
I wonder what spoke to me in this lumpy pile of snow with its unusual surface, neither jagged nor showing a natural contour of snow lying atop the bare ground and unmanipulated by human activity. Compared to the first shot (contrasty silhouette glowing) and second shot (rich spectrum of shading from lighter to darker), this one is less obvious or dramatic in its calling out for my attention. In hindsight this mound is mostly in shadow, so the cool, bluish cast from the color temperature is one thing that sets it apart from other snow piles. The smooth, rounded shapes also set it apart from its peers; almost human-like it the absence of sharp edges. Most of all, though, it is the play of light on the bluish and mounded surfaces that causes such subtle gradations of shading. That, too, sets it apart from the snow covering the parking lot, lawns, and woods surrounding this spot.
Seeing the different together, the kinds of things that speak to one’s eye can be distinguished: color, shading of light, stark effect of the contrast line of dark and bright, and so on. Therefore, the expression for “light speaking to you” or “listening to the light” is not so far fetched. Researchers identify many more body senses than the standard five (touch, taste, smell, sound, sight). The consciousness about one’s gravity orientation (which what is up or down), the sense of a limb’s proximity to something not yet physically contacted, the spatial picture that sounds can produce in the mind’s eye are all examples of awareness that is synthesized by combining several inputs. “Listening to the light” seems to be one more of these complex mental pictures that can show up in one’s mind.
The last hour of afternoon light, 3 weeks before Winter Solstice, the light is scarce, so its scattered appearance seems super bright.
It is hardly a fresh insight to say that viewers interpret the light relative to the surrounding conditions. A single candle seems very bright in an utterly dark room, but the same candle in broad daylight is hardly noticed. The same is true of seasoning in food (putting sweet and sour together allows each to enhance the other), plot development in movies (good or bad conditions of the protagonist are rated each relative to the other), shadow in juxtaposition to light, red color in relation to green, or symphonic quiet passages relative to crescendo sequences.
The afternoon light recorded in this photo prompted me to wonder at the intense luminosity of pre-winter blue in the northern hemisphere at 43 degrees north latitude: why should this same patch of sky change as the position of the sun moves lower to the horizon in the run-up to the winter solstice? Probably the physics of light, the nature of the Earth atmosphere and seasonal axis tilt, and the way human brains interpret light by relative contrast to adjacent subjects all together contribute to this sense of bright skies in the late afternoon view. But extending this mode of perceiving light to the wider arena of seeing the world of one’s mind, what does it suggest?
Given the way that a subject’s boundary definition, its perceived presence, color values, reflectivity, and overall look can be affected by the surrounding frame where it appears, it makes sense to think that the same effects do affect concepts, arguments, logical exposition and persuasive presentations, too; that is to say, the meaning of a topic is colored by what occurs just before encountering that subject matter. Your frame of mind had been adjusted to topic X and remained in that position at the moment of meeting topic Y. Furthermore, the standpoint adopted with topic Y will then carryover, at least momentarily, into the next topic that comes along. An alternative sequence of mental events would interrupt the carryover effect by introducing a distraction, much like the multi-course meal is broken up between sessions by means of a “palette cleanser” such as a morsel or two of mild-flavored melon. Professionals who depend on their nose and tasting senses (wine evaluators, coffee judges, whisky buyers, chocolate buyers, perfume merchants, et cetera) understand this need to refresh their critical senses between sessions. Probably movie reviewers, too, know it is valuable to take a break between screenings to avoid carryover/latency feelings that may color the new subject when it is seen in light of what came before it.
It seems like a big stretch of the imagination to go from the perception of the above skies in the photo being unnaturally bright to the world of brokers judging coffee, but by such jumps of the mind do metaphors allow people to branch into new and unexpected, sometimes reverberating poetic, ways. So far, this ability to leap sideways in surprising figures of speech is one thing humans continue to beat machines at; long may it remain this way!
Salting your sweet watermelon to make it even sweeter? Sugar on sweet corn or popcorn to make the saltiness more satisfying? Such contrasts seem to amplify the experience not only in taste, smell, or sound, but also visually. In this early evening springtime snapshot blossoms and leaves in several colors juxtapose so that each stands out relative to the others: green seems greener, pink seems pinker.
colors intensified or amplified by proximity to contrasting ones [author photo]
When it comes to scenes chanced upon outdoors, springtime blossoms and fall leaves furnish abundant color in many contrasting varieties. But the dynamic tension made possible by visual contrasts can include the other dimensions of a composition besides color: lines that are straight vs. curved, textures that are rough vs. smooth, scale of mass or stature that is great vs. small, spaces filled with shadow vs. light, mixed lighting that is natural vs. artificial or direct vs. indirect or warm light color temperature vs. cool. Field of focus allows still another sort of contrast: one part crisply focused vs. blurred or partly focused. In each case, the contrasts detected by the eye feed back into the viewing experience so that each side in tension seems to become more of its own self: red is redder, curve is curvier, smooth is smoother, big is bigger, and sharp is sharper in focus.
Perhaps this zestiness or frisson to the senses is universal among all people and eternal to all periods of history (and prehistory before that). Wherever there is contrast, so too there is amplified (self) awareness. So Vive la Différence and let the contrasts continue into the future so that viewers may find themselves suddenly astonished by looking and noticing the tension pulling tight from a particular vantage point and for a particular play of light.
Most people are vaguely aware that the viewing experience differs, and by extension perhaps the thinking experience differs, between black and white (bw) and color. But only a few people put those distinctions into words, either analytically or imagistically.
The viewer wonders: what is it, what’s going on? WHAT matters. [author’s photo]
The viewer’s feelings are engaged in color: how do I feel – ordinary or spectacular. HOW matters. [author’s photo]
Here are a few quotes from the Web search string, “black and white photography quotes.”
When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls! ― Ted Grant
The eye should learn to listen before it looks. ― Robert Frank
To see in color is a delight for the eye but to see in black and white is a delight for the soul. – Andri Cauldwell
What I love about Black & White photographs is that they’re more like reading the book than seeing the movie. – Jennifer Price
Color is descriptive. Black and white is interpretive. – Eliott Erwitt
Having begun snapshots with a family camera in bw and later in color, it seemed to me to be a parallel to the transition from home TV going from bw to color, something technologically advanced and therefore better, cheaper, faster, and so on. Later in high school Photo Club it was bulk loading bw film into reusable cassettes, developing it and printing from the negatives that taught me what makes a good shot, at least in terms of focus, framing of main subject, moment of shutter release (and appropriate speed), desired exposure for camera and for printing in the darkroom. All those steps took training, time, and money. By contrast digitally recording and then distributing online or by print services (home printing, self-serve commercial kiosk, or vendor services) minimized time and concern with cost for materials. One result of digital photography is the much wider use of pictures in daily life as memory aid, proof or evidence, visual communication, or artistic outlet. “Practice makes perfect” may apply to some enthusiasts and professionals who actively seek to expand their skill set, technical challenges, and eye for seeing and making pictures (and video). Because these active seekers, lookers, learners can now increase the volume and frequency of making and viewing pictures, perhpas the world is filled with many more adept viewers and makers of pictures than ever before.
With life experience grounded in bw film photography, my infatuation with digital (color) photography was deep and long lasting. Rarely do I consider shooting film, and rarely do I set the digital camera to bw mode (or use post-processing to de-saturate the color to produce a grayscale display of the original photograph). With an eye for documentary photography and occasional video clips to supplement the static compositions, it is color that seems truest to life and the visual experience of the human eye. Rules of thumb include ‘normal’ focal length (35mm film camera equivalent to 35-65mm lens), clear focus with little or no blur of subject or camera itself, little or no added flash, and full depth of field whenever that is practical. And yet, having fully adjusted to a working method of color, every so often I see someone else’s bw picture, or see a picture in a book that comes from pre-color photography. Eventhough consumers could buy color in the 1930s, it was costly, a novelty, and inconvenient to find processing. So both professionals in news media and hobbyists shot bw until sometime in the 1960s, at least for the USA. At those times when I see bw, the question sometimes comes to mind: what exactly is it about bw that separates it from color. The matched illustrations, above, give a hint of the many differences.
Immersive color, abstractive bw. Without the readily identifiable color clues that lead a viewer into close contact with the scene, a bw picture fundamentally stands apart from the viewer in a sort of limbo – possibly dating 10 years in the past or maybe 25 or 50. Time is (partly) erased. Even something taken only a minute before has the likeness of “bw days from long ago.”
Color fills in the imagination; bw forces viewer to form the meaning. Cinematic color paints a vivid and specific picture in your mind’s eye. By contrast, bw is akin to the words printed in black ink on a white page. It is up to the reader to decode the marks and then form a mental picture of what is being expressed verbally. Several months ago a pair of computer programmers in Norway were interviewed for radio about their experiment to create a piece of software that would randomly put cryptic phrases in juxtaposition with an abstract, beautiful (color) image with the result that most people injected or projected their own meaning somehow to make the image and the text into coherent union. In other words, the power of the viewer (or reader’s) imagination is capable of supplying the meaning to inherently abstract or de-contextualized material, whether that is “inspirational quotes of the day” from a computer bot, or that is a bw photo of a subject stripped of its own color and the surrounding color.
Experience of bw matters; less so for color images. People who grew up with bw TV, movies, snapshots and family portraits, as well as newspaper reporting and photojournalism were able to imagine some sort of colors belonging to the live/original scene and subject. In other words the artificial tones of black, gray, and white were not an obstacle to communicating the essential meaning of the picture: WHAT is the significance (not ~~as in color judgements of ‘true to life’ versus fake-looking ~~HOW it looks). But for people born after 1970 or 1975 all the media forms listed above transitioned into color with bw as a curious outlier or rarity that offered mild shock for its exotic unfamiliarity. In sum, people with abundant bw viewing (and photographing) experience can see through the abstract tones; it is largely invisible or incidental. But for people with little experience like this, the bw image can be fetishized or treated as outlandish object so that the subject contained is ineffectively communicated. The medium and the message become confused.
Additional quotes from the earlier online search include the following.
In black and white there are more colors than color photography, because you are not blocked by any colors so you can use your experiences, your knowledge, and your fantasy, to put colors into black and white. – Anders Petersen
I think it’s because it was an emotional story, and emotions come through much stronger in black and white. Color is distracting in a way, it pleases the eye but it doesn’t necessarily reach the heart. – Kim Hunter
One very important difference between color and monochromatic photography is this: in black and white you suggest; in color you state. Much can be implied by suggestion, but statement demands certainty… absolute certainty. – Paul Outerbridge
Black and white has an unsurpassed ability to convey character. – David Prakel
Working in black and white makes me feel like a painter, not a photographer. Shooting this way allows me to focus my attention on the light and shade, textures, shapes and expressions. It’s really a matter of personal choice, but in my opinion black and white can lead to a more abstract reading of reality, which is arguably more demanding and more challenging to produce. Here photographers cannot use flattering colours or coloured light to distract the eye. You cannot cheat in black and white. – Guy Gagnon
…For me, great black and white images fall into two categories: very dramatic with stormy skies and bold compositions and at the other end of the spectrum a calm and minimalist composition. – Helen Rushton
Black and white creates a strange dreamscape that color never can. – Jack Antonoff
With black and white photography, what you have to say counts more than the way you say it. – Gian Marco Marano
I work in colour sometimes, but I guess the images I most connect to, historically speaking, are in black and white. I see more in black and white – I like the abstraction of it. ― Mary Ellen Mark
What these many quotes and my own meditations have to say about bw versus color pictures is that there is a profound and consequential difference in what makes an eye-catching visual statement. Color is about warmth or coolness of light and the emotions stirred incidentally by illumination, as if the viewer were immersed personally, present in the frame. BW is about geometry of line, shadow, pattern and texture, decisive moment of shutter release and frame for the composition. Color is much more readily personal; bw impersonal. Color is immediate; bw is not anchored in time. Color invites emotional response; bw insists on logic or thinking. Color shows you what the significance is; bw requires deduction or induction by which the viewer arrives at interpretation for what the significance is.
If the entirety of photography were bw, then these distinctions would be mute; the differences would be moot. The people who would make the pictures and the people who would view the pictures would all be accustomed to supplying meaning to make the picture alive; not abstract or distant in its impression. But thanks to the split between color and bw, and moreover because of the comparative rarity of bw in daily life for most people, these differences do seem to matter. Perhaps if 3-D or holographic pictures come to dominate visual communication, then analytical distinctions and some observations by famous practitioners will then be quoted to reveal the essential differences in bw, color, and holographs. But for now, it is just color and bw that need to be understood for the consequences to picture takers and for picture viewers.
solitary tree in grandeur overlooking the pastures (click for full view)
As the early August evening gathered in and patches of rain clouds scudded past, this tree on the road between Helton and Bampton just 5 km due east of Ullswater in the Lake District stood out with an invitation to take its picture. Thinking about what makes the tree so eye-catching, there seem to be a few things at work. One is the “figure – ground” relationship that frames and draws attention to the dark tree on a lighter background. Then there is the physical presence of something of this size, particularly when there is no other similar feature to distract attention from the singular focus on this lone tree. Also, there is the peculiar character of this specimen; it is not a cookie-cutter, symmetrical example of this sort of tree. Instead, it expresses an individual personality and facets that mark it apart from any other.
Looking at these same contributing factors of the statuesque tree from the opposite direction, each of the three principles producing its stately grandeur can be stated in reverse. (1) If this same tree were obscured by other vegetation, the surrounding space that gives it dramatic definition would render the tree much less noticeable; hardly remarkable in such a context. (2) A smaller version of this tree would be much less impressive, since size relative to nearby elements does matter. (3) A symmetrical, picture-perfect version of this tree would be less dynamic, much less living fully to occupy its place.
Perhaps there are still other reasons why a tree like this one in this location and lighting seems posed on a pedestal for all to admire in full statuesque glory. For example, the contrast of evening lighting (low angle of the sun, mostly indirect rather than full light), of twiggy texture against frictionless air around it, of line flow in the composition – all these could contribute to viewer impression of statue-like detail and care in a standout subject like this one. The adjacent features also help to frame it, such as curving stone walls that enhance the three dimensional, spatial perspective of volume and mass. Likewise the sense of motion from the racing storm clouds offer strongly defining contrast to the solidly rooted tree.
In sum, the factors that contribute to the expression of out-of-the-ordinary status of this tree all seem to do one thing. The subject stands out from the surrounding conditions by dint of contrast – in compositional elements, in static tree/dynamic setting, in scale and isolation from distracting context. So the next time that something seems to stand out in a statue-like way, perhaps it is this same sort of contrast to what otherwise would be unremarkable that creates the effect. Looking at the phenomenon from the opposite direction, anything that does seem to stand out from its context in a statuesque way can be lessened by reducing those things that contribute to contrast of the subject from its surroundings – compositional features, motion (or its opposite), or its singular scale and apparent isolation from nearby conditions.
see2think 