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I heard that in the Third World and former socialist bloc, color photography was less common than monochrome as late as the 1990s, while here in the West color generally took over in the 60s/70s.
Not sure about that but black and white had an niche in the early 90ies--high school year books often had some black and white to save money until the advent of digital photography.
Not sure about that but black and white had an niche in the early 90ies--high school year books often had some black and white to save money until the advent of digital photography.
Hell for yearbooks I'd say this held true throughout the 90s. Maybe even into the early 00s, i think my middle school yearbook from '01 may have been partly B&W!
Hell for yearbooks I'd say this held true throughout the 90s. Maybe even into the early 00s, i think my middle school yearbook from '01 may have been partly B&W!
LoL , the difference. I have no middle school or any year book other than high school(It was rare in my area and time period to do more than just an color class photo of school bellow high school). My high school year book is mostly black and white except for the senior class.
I took black and white photography in the 90ies and later color photography. Black and white is cheaper in terms of chemicals, paper, film and labor.
During WWII color films(expect for shorts like cartoons) were banned due to chemical and labor reasons. Before WWII color film was used mostly for big and lavish productions and not the average movie. Color film does not become standard in movies till the late 50ies due to competition with early TV(which was black and white).
TV broadcasting in color doesn't become standard till the late 60ies, but black and white sets will be sold until the 80ies(it was cheaper and was used for that 2nd TV). The first color TV's are sold in the late 50ies, but very expensive and most people won't have color till the 1970ies.
My old Atari 2600 had an switch to turn the game black and white and I watched black and white TV for an short time in the late 70ies/ early 80ies. Black and white TV worked using the same signal as for the color TV set(there was an additional signal with the color information) and so they would have worked right until the switch to digital.
I heard that in the Third World and former socialist bloc, color photography was less common than monochrome as late as the 1990s, while here in the West color generally took over in the 60s/70s.
Interesting question although I am not sure what this is being based upon, color for personal photography, fine art, journalism what? I know that while color photography was becoming dominate in the weekly news magazines, color photography in Journalism didn't really come to dominate the newspaper business until the mid-to late 80's...
It definitely was more common in Soviet bloc countries. I'm sure much of that reason was due to the lower cost, but a lot of also just had to do with design sensibilities. I was peripherally involved with getting a Polaroid 20X24 camera studio set up in Prague in the early 90's and I remember a lot of Czech photographers being shocked that black and white Polaroid film was not made for the camera. They loved the idea of the size and resolution of the camera, but had no interest in shooting color film at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ovcatto
color photography in Journalism didn't really come to dominate the newspaper business until the mid-to late 80's...
Black and White remained in journalism for a long time based on film speeds. With B+W film it wasn't that hard to take a 400 ASA/ISO film and push it to 1600 and still get decent results. Color film behaved very differently, and most publications liked to stick with 100 ASA/ISO films for color, even after 400 ASA/ISO color films became available. High speed color films had worse resolution than even higher B+W ASA/ISO films, and the colors tended to skew in really weird directions that couldn't be corrected in darkroom printing. Digital changed all that, not only because of higher speeds with CCD chips, but also because the color aberrations could be corrected using software.
Another thing is some photographers prefer black and white with its grey scale and different lighting effects. They use this for various dramatic effects, mood and it sometimes helps to focus on the subject matter presenting less distraction (I,e, that classic picture of James Dean cigarette in mouth head hung down walking down a wet New York street just after dawn in Soho, it conveys a sadness, loneliness and lack of color and life (pure alienation) impossible to convey with Kodacolor!!.
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