It is not obvious which visual representation best captures the “flowerness,” a two-dimensional but full-color photo of the morning flowers in bright sunlight or the tableau of flowered silhouettes. In the abstract, artful tones of tan and dark gray the viewer’s attention only has the outline shapes to interpret. There is no way to ponder the colors and many textures of the blossoms and leaves and stems. By contrast, the full-color image of the flowers in the same backlit morning light shows viewers everything about the subject: size, texture, variation in colors and reflective surfaces, interplay of all dimensions – depth, height, width. Unmediated by the fabric back of the chair, the full flower scene invites all sorts of thinking and appreciation. But by seeing just the outlines, some sort of distillation is imposed; only part of the total subject is presented for intense scrutiny, freed from the deep context of all dimensions.
Whole essays are written about the merits of converting digital color composition into grayscale versions, of shooting in a specialized digital camera with a monochrome-only sensor, or indeed of committing to film photography in black and white. By analogy to theatrical films, documentaries, photo essays, or black-and-white TV, at the time when no color option was practical or widespread, viewers intuited colors as an integral part of interpreting what is happening in the scene or identifying the subject being represented. An even heavier interpretive burden is present when readers see a halftone image printed in newspapers or magazines before the days of color. The mesh of holes that allow an image to be attached to the newsprint is something like a screendoor separating the subject from the viewer. It is possible to disregard that interference and focus on the subject printed or the one beyond the screendoor, but the barrier is there, nevertheless.
It is hard to know completely or precisely what happens when memories of images come from black-and-white originals. Does a person hold the memory “as is,” in monochrome, or instead automatically add it to other representations in full color that were gathered from personal experience and from other images. In other words, does the b&w image retain is colorless character, or does the visual memory sometimes intuit color to the subject: not exactly knowing the original colors, but parenthetically accepting that there is color inherent in the real-world instance of it.
People who praise black and white describe the added power it has over most color compositions because rather than falsely immersing the viewer in a living visual experience or facsimile of “being there,” the opposite effect happens. The viewer’s distance and abstraction from the subject is emphasized. The viewer really does feel like a spectator, not a virtual participant or witness who is present with the photographer at the moment of capture. As a result of this emphasis on the separation of the image from the scene, it is natural and pleasurable to adopt a contemplative stance, unhurriedly wandering around the image with one’s eyes, noticing patterns and relationships that might go unnoticed or maybe not seen as meaningful in a full-color rendering of the composition. Things such as the geometry, texture, juxtaposition, and timing of the photo may well stand out in b&w more than with color. Compelling color shots can feel like a window, even without glass to separate the viewer from the scene. But compelling b&w shots offer an object of study and aesthetic wondering, much like a gallery painting mounted on a wall; never a window to a place one seemingly could simply step into.
Thinking of this shadow photo for #worldphotographyday, by simplifying a colorful and complicated subject into outlines traced as shadow silhouettes on a fabric background something essential about the flowers can be seen that is largely unnoticed in the ordinary color snapshot of the group of summer flowers. Analytically, scientists of life often distinguish between anatomy (structures), physiology (functions or processes), and behavior (cognition and activities alone and in relationship to others). This simplified flower view draws attention to structure by discarding all the other dimensions of function, behavior, as well as many other dimensions of structure itself (texture, color, depth and density). So, this conversion from complicated subject to a simple design is a good example of the saying that “less is more.” Because so much information is discarded or excluded, appreciation of what little is left comes to the mind of the viewer.
Turning to the theme of the articles in this blog about “seeing to think,” the simplification experience applies equally well to the world of ideas and impressions, too. By reducing the scope of sensation and range of things to observe, attention is not spread out across many dimensions and facets. Instead, engagement with the subject is narrowed and scrutiny can produce possibly the best blossoms.
see2think 