Some years ago I was having a conversation with a photographer friend. She works (almost) exclusively in black & white. At the time, I felt like my own practice lacked a certain direction - that something was missing, a focus - and I was considering this as an option.
I asked her about her choice.
She talked to me about lighting and contrast. About tone, feel, and drama. The technical.
But above all, she talked - gushed - about the romance of working in black & white.
The tradition.
Henri Cartier-Bresson and his Leica. Edward Weston and a pepper. Ansel Adams and f/64. Alfred Stieglitz husband of Georgia O'Keeffe. Diane Arbus and her twins. Dorothea Lange and, of course, Walker Evans.
And I thought about this.
Certainly a distinguished list. But what about color, I asked. Doesn’t color have lighting and contrast. Doesn’t color have tone, feel, and drama. Tradition, romance, and just as many distinguished names?
She considered this for a moment and replied - with great confidence:
Color-photography is vulgar. 1
Four simple words.
I loved it.
The phrase sang to me.
So concise.
So sure of itself.
Directed. Complete. And focused.
It was exactly what I needed to hear when I needed to hear it.
And with that, I set aside color and worked (almost) exclusively in black & white for nearly a year.
I enjoy developing the film. I love my Mamiya RZ-67 (and my old-school Leica). The sound of the shutter, the heft of the camera, the big glass. I especially love looking through a waist-level viewfinder.
And the negatives! They have a quality all their own. It’s like magic when you bring them out of the fixer.
And this worked well.
For awhile.
I had a direction.
But occasionally there would be an image, an idea, or a project where color seemed to be a ‘better’ choice.
Anomalies, I figured. I must be wrong, not refined enough. I must be missing some point.
The point.
Remember: color-photography is vulgar.
So I set these thoughts aside.
I dabbled in color from time to time. Viewing it as a kind of ‘guilty pleasure.’
But as this happened more and more - the more I was ‘wrong’ - the more I enjoyed the vulgarity - the more I wondered.
And The Muse whispered.
Maybe I was missing the point.
And maybe that was the point.
Vulgar bucks convention, and taste, and refinement.
Vulgar is different.
It’s not a negative.
Vulgar is common.
And so am I.
Yes, choosing to work exclusively in black & white made sense at the time. It gave me what I needed: a direction. And limits serve a purpose. But they should never be fixed, permanently. Evaluate, and re-evaluate. Reflect and learn.
Grow!
Listen to your own feelings. Your own intuitions. Have your own thoughts. Make your own choices. Draw you own conclusions.
It is the current makes the water strong. And the wind that fans the flames.
Own the act and live with the results. Question everything - beginning with, and above all, yourself.
How do you know the things you know?
And make no mistake: When you leave the shadow of another - of convention, taste, and refinement - of tradition - you will be exposed to the harsh light of day.
And this is no easy place to be.
As Plato tells us in his allegory of the cave:
And if he were made to look directly into the light, would this not hurt his eyes, and would he not turn back and retreat to the things which he had the power to see, thinking that these [the shadows] were in fact clearer [more visible] than the things now being shown to him?
Yes.2
Listen to the voice that whispers. That questions. That wonders.
Your Muse speaks.
Hear!
Do not become so enamored with the words of others that you lose your own.
We do not stand on the shoulders of giants.
The giants stand on ours.
Color-photography is vulgar.
And that is precisely why I embrace it, without guilt, shame, or regret.
Oh, one more thing…
Years later I made a discovery: Walker Evans worked in color.
Dude!
What the fuck?
And yet again I found myself wondering about the four simple words.
I wanted to learn more about the quote. I wanted to find it in the original text as Evans had written it.
(If such a thing existed)
And let me tell you, it’s not easily found.
(the Source rarely is)
In fact, in my experience - of all the times I’ve heard this quote or seen it written about, I have never - not once - seen it sourced.
And just to be clear, that does mean such a thing doesn’t exist. I’m sure it does. I haven’t experienced everything.
(at least I hope not)
So I went to the library.
And by “I” I mean my friend Mark.
(thanks, buddy)
With the help of a fantastic librarian, and after about 20 minutes, he was presented with a book: Quality: Its Image In The Arts. Published 1969 by Balance House and edited by Louis Kronenberger.
The book is a collection of essays. And one of the essays (pages 169 - 211) is titled Photography and is written by (you guessed it) Walker Evans.
On page 208 - after the wonderful bit about Alfred Stieglitz (remember him, husband of Georgia O'Keeffe) - he writes:
Color tends to corrupt photography and absolute color corrupts it absolutely. Consider the way color film usually renders blue sky, green foliage, lipstick red, and the kiddie’s playsuit. There are four simple words for the matter, which must be whispered: Color-photography is vulgar.
When the point of a picture subject is precisely its vulgarity or its color-accident through man’s hand, not God’s, then only can color film be used validly. In the example reproduced here, there is color in primitive accident and in bracing vibrancy combined. This particular jumble of car parking-lot come-on would, in fact, not make its point in a black-and-white photograph – and that is the test of its aesthetic in color. Rare is the subject in which this is the case. Almost always, color can be used well only by a photographer who is an artist of perfect taste – Marie Cosindas, for example (turn the next page) - and of immense technical mastery; for color has to be controlled and altered from start to finish, by selection of film, by lens filters, and in developing and printing.
It is a consoling thought that in about fifty years both color transparency and paper prints in color – all the color photography done in this period – will very probably have faded away…
Thus spoke Walker Evans.
If you want to see the images, or read the article (which is wonderful) go to the book.
I hear you can find it at the library.
Until next Tuesday (unless we’re all devoured by Gremlins)
Chau,
Len
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PPS
They are a treasure.
If you’re not familiar with these four simple words, they are attributed to the photographer Walker Evans (1903 - 1975).
This is from a conversation between Socrates and Glaucon from Plato’s Cave allegory. From the book The Essence of Truth (Continuum, 2002) by Martin Heidegger. The book is a Ted Sadler translation of Heidegger’s Vom Wesen der Wahrheit: zu Platons Höhlengleichnis und Theätet