Discussion: Weekly Competition No 11 - "Solitude"

Good one, Dan. And I know how you got the idea, you pre-empted the feeling of judging this one

Great picture Lilly, where was it taken?

Ken

Thank u, I took it in the city of Ulanbaator, Mongolia with my Z1, it was a very empty and quiet place with amazing architecture.

I can see already that this is going to be another hard one to judge...

Dan

Lets hope the judge this week doesn't fall into the all-too-obvious trap of thinking that moody subjects are better expressed in drab mono.

Mono? Drab? No way!

DRAB MONO !!! How very dare you Lenscape

Sure it is. Drab and depressing, generally.

It is very rare indeed for a mono picture to get anything more than a quick glance from me.

It's a bit like listening to good music with your fingers in your ears. You can still hear it but all the richness is lost.

IMHO, a good photo is never improved by removing the colour but a dull one may be made less so.

I can tolerate poor music longer with my fingers in my ears.

I have never understood the attraction.

A good mono is not drab or depressing, a bad mono is both.
I find it interesting that so many of the photos are in mono - maybe people (subconsciously?) associate solitude with drab/depressing, or at least a lack of colour?

Well, Lenscape, you've just written off the complete works of all the really great photographers, from Julia Margaret Cameron, through Ansel Adams, to HCB.

Colour is a very superficial thing, and only useful to pictorialists. Photography, done properly, is capable of so much more. By omitting colour, a photographer concentrates the mind on the essential elements of the message he is trying to convey.

I would say that if you were to compile a list of the 100 best photographs of all time, colour would account for fewer than ten. In fact, I can't think of a REALLY good colour photograph.

Sadly, good B&W photography is very difficult. That's why most of us mainly use colour.

G

Edward Weston, Charles Sheeler, W. Eugene Smith, Cartier Bresson.. the list goes on.

Er, HCB = Henri Cartier-Bresson. But he's good enough to mention twice.

G

Ah but they shot in b/w and with film.
Most digital conversions to mono are grim you must agree. Done well they are great, but generally they turn muddy and flat. Not that I'm saying any of the posted photos are like that - they are all pretty good, certainly far better than I could achieve, but on the whole digital mono conversion is not good.

And I as I said before I was puzzled by the number of mono offerings this time, as if solitude can not be enjoyed in full Technicolor.

But surely, you're not meant to enjoy solitude. It's naturally monochromatic. Though perhaps blue, rather than grey.

G

Some of us still do!

Ken