Black and White

Last night I did some things that I haven't ever done before, accompanying a Belmar photo walk to a brand new brewery that just opened about a block from the Belmar Arts Council.  Although I've been doing the Belmar Arts blog almost as long as I've been doing this one, I've never covered the photo walks, where a bunch of photographers wander parts of town taking photos with their cameras.  This is mostly because I figure if you have a few dozen people walking around with cameras for a few hours, at least one of them should be able to take their own pictures for that blog, though so far it has been beyond their capability.  However, three things tilted me toward going on this one.  First, this brewery has been under construction for past several months, in the remains of Freedman's Bakery, and I'm curious as to what it will be.  Second, they promised pizza at the discussion group to follow.  Third, the topic was photography as journalism, which is pretty much what I do for the blog.

So late yesterday afternoon/early last night, we had 30 members of the BAC moving through the Beach Haus brewery, getting a nice tour, and 29 of those people taking dozens or hundreds of photos of the facilities.  The one who wasn't was me, as I was taking photos of the members, documenting the activity for the Belmar blog.  Above is the group in the bottling part of the building, and below is the group in the tap room, enjoying the product.  This place pales in comparison to the Anchor Brewery tour I went on in San Francisco- nicer old fashioned design, and in the tap room the beer was all free and all you could drink, though on a day when I'm not so busy I plan to come back and try some of the brews.  I can see this place doing well.

I departed a few minutes early to go back and open up the building for the group while the organizers were getting the promised pizza.  A few minutes later we had the crowd and the food there and once everyone sat down with some slices, a very lively discussion started.  The idea was that journalistic standards require rules that must be followed, and the debate was over what level of alteration to the raw file is acceptable for this aspect of photography.

As an artist with a long history of drawing from life, I have the point of view that no photo is showing reality.  In converting a three dimensional scene to a flat two dimensional image, be it film or digital, so much of what can be seen by our eyes is immediately lost, which is why I don't let my drawing students work from photos.  (my 2D class has a number of projects that involve working from photos, but that class is only about two dimensions)  Since all photos are a compromise with reality, I am okay with making some minor adjustments of my own to the images.  The photos I post are all cropped, and most are adjusted for value tones, both of which I learned are generally acceptable alterations.  I lack a more sophisticated photo modification program for my computer, so you won't see me adding or subtracting elements, which everyone agreed is problematic.  The photo at the top is actually two photos stitched together by the computer to make one wide view, the computer program deciding what needs to be modified to make this happen.   I didn't post this one to the Belmar blog because one of the figures was a bit distorted by this process, but here it goes to my point.

More contentious were ideas that dealt with artistic intentions and decisions.  Part of the debate was over the use of black and white.  For over a century, essentially all photography was black and white, and because of limitations in reproduction, for even longer all journalism was reproduced in black and white.  (for years I had to shoot black and white photos of my woodcuts to send to newspapers, for promotion and reviews, as they couldn't print color photos of my color artwork)  It was accepted, because it was the only possibility.  But one person asked if it would be permissible today.   Digital is the standard these days, color film is everywhere for those who use it, and most newspapers and magazines can print color.  So would choosing to shoot news in black and white be a decision to intentionally alter the reality of what was seen, or at least limit the information shown to the viewer?  It was all somewhat interesting, but I took off around 8 pm, needing to go back home and download and edit photos for two blog posts I put up last night.  I figured this could wait until tonight.

Later last night I had another slightly related realization.  Black and white photography started in the early 1800's, went though stages of metal and glass plates before film became dominant in the 20th century.  Black and white became the standard for journalism, but also for a lot of "art" photography.  By the turn of the current century, shooting black and white film became rare.  The two colleges I currently work at, one dropped all the popular black and white photo classes years ago with no warning, and the other tried to a few years ago when the tenured professor who taught it retired, but had to bring a few back so majors could complete their degrees.  So the relatively modern medium of traditional film photography is almost dead, yet the ancient medium of woodcut printmaking still goes on.  I seem to have picked the one with more staying power.