Because we can.
You know, fine art photography's a lot like Everest. Why climb it? Because we can.
Once upon a time an amateur fine-art photographer lacked the budget to do much creative color work. It was not just expensive, it was tedious. And with the fumes, the process was even a tad dangerous. It was always unpredictable and it ended in unreproducible results. Today full jacket chrome is ordinary as a mini-skirt in Spring. No, that's even too rare... It's ordinary as boy with lust in his heart when he spots a mini-skirt in Spring, right?
So we're challenged with the emotional goo that chrome pours all over every image. The challenge is multiplied by a zillion. Hence the allure of B&W image making. Here, look at this 1949 Ford Anglia Bristol van that a Killarney shop's got in the middle of its floorspace. It glows with colored feeling.
OK, and now, instead of finding ways to add chrome to our B&W darkroom-world, we can perform radical chromectomy. Like this...
Okay, have I added by subtracting? Or have I subtracted by adding the chromectomy? How much emotion is ripped away in B&W? Or... are these dramatically different messages, each as complex? But how can something be made differently complex by taking a scalpel to it? Hmmmm...
Gotta' think on this :-) Should the age of mono-chrome be over? Or is mono really a surrender to the complex challenge of the colors of life? A retreat?
Thoughts?
