Aug 2nd, 2008
The Color of Black and White and Vice Versa
My mind has wondered often recently to the differences between black and white and color. I’ve been left with more questions than answers.
We all make certain choices as artists. Hopefully, those choices allow us to better communicate our ideas. However, certain aspects of our processes are “non-choices” for lack of a better word. To put it another way, at any given point in time, there are certain default settings associated with a given medium such as photography (I am happy to apply a digital analogy to the analog world here since it seems very often to work the other way around). Working within those default settings usually doesn’t require much explanation. However, any move away from them is seen as a conscious choice, and thus requires a conceptual explanation. Throughout modernism, these default settings involved black and white photography matted in a black metal frame hung against a white wall. Now they seem to be color photographs with no matte mounted to plexi or floated in a black wood frame. Have we come to the point where the choice to use color photography requires no explanation, but the choice to use black and white does??
Furthermore, all things seem to either march in a straight line (evolution) or go in cycles (fashion trends, seasons, the movement of the universe). Is the move to color evolution, or a trend?
It’s been nothing but sun here for three and a half weeks straight, and I haven’t taken a photograph in as much time. My printer is currently dead (a $5000 piece of scrap metal at the moment), and I haven’t had the time to figure out how to go about fixing it. I need a change in the weather. A good storm to come and wash away.