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September 2000

The Case For REAL Black And White by J.J. Allen

t isn't hard to make a case for black-and-white photography. It has already been made quite eloquently. Almost every recent issue of every photographic magazine has at least one story about the way some photographer is using black and white. There is a good reason for its return to popularity. For some people it's a trendy thing. For others, caught up in the charm of old family photographs, black and white rings a nostalgic bell. However, there is something genuine about black and white that reaches out to something in us that is more significant than nostalgia or trends.

A friend e-mailed me last night. She reminded me that I have been photographing her for the past 26 years. She told me about her feelings about black and white. She said ".... color is beautiful, but there's something so real…so raw about black-and-white photos. I prefer them,actually…there's not much you can hide in black and white…it is what it is." Margarita is an exception. Not everyone is interested in raw reality, but there is more to black and white than that. Black and white can be just as nitty gritty as my friend says, but it can also have a quiet elegance and grace that color doesn't quite capture.

There is something about black and white that goes beyond reason. Although color has been around so long that generations have grown up with it, I think that even those generations feel that black and white tells a truth that color doesn't.

Black and white reaches many people in some way that color doesn't. Someone once told me that looking at a black-and-white photograph was like being led beside still waters. The photograph he was looking at was one of mine. You see it on these pages. I won't claim any special quality for my image of a mud puddle, but I know that there is a quietness about a scene captured in black and white that you will not find in a color photograph of the same scene.

Yes, it is easy to make a case for black and white, but maybe a little harder to make a case for real black and white-the kind that means leaving the sales area or the studio and going into a smelly darkroom, rolling up your sleeves and doing it yourself. (Or hiring a skilled black-and-white technician, if you can find one.)

You see, real black and white isn't a commodity you can buy from the same lab that prints your color photographs. All too often, lab printed black and white is pseudo black and white, printed on color paper. This pseudo black and white may be convenient to produce, but believe me, it's not the real thing. The real thing, processed properly, will outlast color or black and white printed on color paper. While there have been tremendous advances in the keeping qualities of color papers, those advances are measured in years of dark storage-a standard that doesn't make much sense to a photographer who wants to sell prints big enough to hang on a wall.

The permanence of color papers isn't the only concern. How well do color negatives keep? I stored several sets of color proofs in envelopes along with the negatives. They date back to the late 70s and early 80, just 20 years ago. I kept them in the dark. Recently I needed prints from several of the negatives. The proofs still looked good. I sent them with the negatives to a very good lab. The lab did their best, but could not make prints that equaled the proofs or my memory of the prints that were made 20 years ago-a Professional Photographers of America merit print and a PPA loan collection print. I tried another lab with no better luck. The conclusion was that the magenta layer of the negatives had faded, and it was impossible to make good prints.

About the same time that two labs were struggling with my color negatives, I needed a print from a black-and-white negative that I made in Holland almost 50 years ago. If the negative had changed, you cannot tell it in my new print. Wait a minute. If black and white has such great keeping qualities, why do we see so many yellowed and faded black-and-white photographs? When experts talk about the permanence of a black-and-white photograph, they qualify what they say by adding the words, "properly processed." In the old days, no one thought much about the keeping qualities of a photograph, so very few people took any special precautions. Even prints made by big name studios faded. On the other hand, properly processed photographs did last. My wife and I own three of them, a photograph of her aunt, one of my oldest sister and one of my father that could have been printed last week, except there are few photographers today, who can equal that quality.

The difference in the keeping qualities of a black-and-white photograph and a color photograph, are in the reasons they fade. Black-and-white prints fade because they weren't washed thoroughly, leaving a residue of harmful acids, or because of post process contact with acidic materials such as mounting boards. Color fades because of the effect of ultraviolet light. Although it is hard to remove all traces of processing chemicals from black-and-white prints, it is easier than it is to eliminate all ultraviolet from the light around us.

Permanence isn't the only reason that black and white can be best. Another is a matter of control. Somehow, it is easier to tell yourself to print a little darker and to know exactly what you mean, than it is to communicate that same thought to a lab technician who must turn out hundreds of prints a day.

Another reason is a matter of interpretation. Once you make your exposure, the fate of the image you saw in your mind's eye is out of your hands and into the hands of a quality-control supervisor who may not see color, depth of tone or contrast the same way you do. I think the thing I enjoy least about photography is trying to communicate what I want so badly from one negative to a person who has to be responsible for the production of more photographs in a day than I do in months.

When you do-it-yourself in black and white, you have choices to make that you don't have when you card your color negative, put it in a work order envelope and send it to your lab. Most color labs print portraits on paper with a slightly pebbled surface-in Kodak-speak, E surface. You don't have a choice, at least not for your day to day work. Although you cannot choose from the wide range of papers that a photographer could choose from in the golden days of black and white, you do have choices. The photographs that you see here were printed on two different papers, one a paper with a neutral tone and the other a warm-toned paper that is equal to the great portrait papers of the past.

Once you have selected the paper, you can decide whether you will make a realistic print, one that records every object in the photograph at its true tonality, or you may choose something altogether different. Do-it-yourself black and white lets you choose and then keep on choosing. If the paper you choose is a bit too warm or a little too cold in tone, you can try a different developer and, after the print has been made and washed free of chemicals, you can take another crack at it. If the dry print is too dark or too light, you can go back another day and make it right. If you need more or less contrast you can change that, too. When the print is right, you can still make choices. You can tone it in one of many toners that will produce a variety of effects.

In future articles we will discuss black and white from the beginning with the film you use, through some of the papers you can choose, to mounting the photograph for permanence.

J.J. Allen operates Flair Photographic, an on location portrait service in Hapeville, GA. He is a long time contributor to Rangefinder. He is the author of Posing and Lighting Techniques for Studio Portrait Photography which is scheduled for publication by Amherst Media in September. Contact J.J. by e-mail at jjaflair@worldnet.att.net.