Bruce Barnbaum - The Art of Photography - An Approach to Personal Expression

Needless to say, each level of contrast possesses a different degree of emotional impact. High contrast has snap and pizzazz; low contrast has subtlety. Just as the eye jumps to light and contrast in a black-and-white photograph, it jumps to high color contrast in a color photograph. Just as tonal contrast can control the mood of a black-and-white print, color contrast can control the mood of a color photograph.

Color negative film is lower in tonal contrast than transparency film, with very few exceptions, and can be expected to yield lower contrast prints than ones derived from transparencies. Differences in color contrast levels can create greater emotional swings than you might expect without seeing comparisons. Digitally, all image capture is in color, and you can extend the range of the sensors with multiple exposures to go further into highlights and deeper into shadows. Then you can later merge the multiple exposures to form the final image (learn more about this in Chapter 11). To my eye, there can be an unnatural, neon look to digital imagery, unless it is handled with extreme care. Today, subtlety seems to be missing far too often.

I feel that it is wise to test several films to see the differences in color balance, degree of color saturation, and contrast level. First, shoot the same subjects under the same conditions with each film to make direct comparisons of their characteristics. Then do it with different types of subject matter under different lighting conditions (such as strong sunlight and shadow, soft overcast, controlled indoor lighting, etc.) to see if some films might be preferable under specific conditions. You will not only gain a better understanding of your materials, but also a greater insight into your interpretive goals.

Neither the degree of color saturation nor the inherent contrast of color film can be significantly altered in development (as contrast can be altered in black-and-white) unless you develop your own negatives or transparencies and learn some highly sophisticated means of contrast control. Most photographers use commercial labs for processing, and contrast control methods are not available at most labs. Thus, the only way to alter color saturation or contrast is by changing from one film to another. Color balance, on the other hand, can be altered by filters. Therefore in choosing a film—or several films—for your purposes, it would be wise to place greater emphasis on saturation and contrast than on color balance; while you can’t control the first two, you can control the latter.

Choosing A Color Film

Most traditional film users choose a color film based on color balance, ignoring contrast completely. I believe this is an incorrect approach. Though it may seem strange at first, your choice of color film should be based on its black-and-white characteristic: contrast. The reason is simply that you maintain more options by choosing your film based on contrast levels rather than on color balance. You can still control the color balance with filters during shooting, and you can modify it further during printing, but you can’t alter the contrast level because it’s inherent in the film. Color films do not have the contrast control that black-and-white films have (Chapter 9). Just as I have stressed up to this point—and shall continue to stress throughout this book—I try to make choices based on maximizing my control of the medium. I suggest you do that, too. It is my opinion that basing your choice of color film on contrast rather than color balance maximizes your control.

Color negative films also exhibit wide differences in color rendition, but as stated earlier, they all tend to have lower contrast and therefore greater tonal range than most transparency films. Some photographers find it difficult to judge the quality of a color negative, especially with the strong orange cast they all possess. But you get used to it with experience. With the longer tonal scale, color negatives provide greater leeway in exposure and greater flexibility in printing than transparency films. Direct comparisons of the respective characteristics of the two are somewhat difficult to make because characteristics of the paper they are printed on must be part of the analysis. Some excellent negative materials are incompatible with certain papers and quite compatible with others, so you might dislike a wonderful negative material only because you tested it on the wrong printing paper!

Note

There is an inherent logic to the degree of contrast that can be accepted, just as there is with the degree of color saturation. If you go too far, it simply looks contrived, cartoonish, and absurd.

It takes time and effort to find the proper combination of negative and paper for your needs, but then, how important are your prints to you? You’ll find that some of the “subtle” color differences are not at all subtle in emotional impact, and by understanding the differences among materials you’ll gain greater control over your color work.

Color Digital Methods

Digital technology provides extraordinary color control. Starting with the digital capture, or with the scan of a film exposure either from a transparency or a negative, you can alter the hue and color saturation of the scene—or even portions of the scene—to suit your needs. Contrast can be increased or decreased as well. The image can be adjusted to nudge the mood of the image one way or the other through careful manipulation of color. Today most color images are made digitally. Whether the images start with digital capture or a scan, all of the final processing is accomplished digitally.

Digital methods have a great advantage not available with traditional color methods: scenes of high contrast can be photographed twice, with one exposure for the shadow area and another for the highlights. Then the two exposures can be “layered”, thus increasing the usable range over that of a color film transparency. In fact, three exposures can be layered as well: one for shadows, one for midtones, and one for highlights. (Actually, any number of exposures can be layered—more about this in Chapter 11.) The final print may rival the eye’s ability to encompass the full range of contrast in the scene. This offers tremendous advantages for color photography. (In black-and-white, where film has extraordinary latitude and can be controlled to astounding degrees in development and printing, digital offers no such advantage.)

On the other end of the contrast range, unacceptably low contrast can be increased easily using applications such as Photoshop. Thus, contrast levels are easily controllable once you understand how to employ the appropriate tools. However, there is an inherent logic to the degree of contrast that can be accepted, just as there is with the degree of color saturation. If you go too far, it simply looks contrived, cartoonish, and absurd. I recommend staying within logical limits. This may seem like unnecessary advice, but color abuse is pervasive with the advent of digital methods where everything can be jacked up to grotesque levels.

Color saturation presents a different set of problems entirely. As stated above, all too often color saturation is undesirably high in digital images. Part of the reason lies in the capture, where there is a clear increase in saturation beyond what the eye perceives. (Of course, this can happen with film too, as in Figure 6-2 where film greatly enhanced the visible color during an extended length exposure. Yet that was an unusual situation, not normally encountered.)

This initial characteristic is made even stronger by most people’s desire to have colors that border on (or go well into) the neon range. The ability to increase saturation is apparently extraordinarily addictive, proving irresistible to most printers. This is a problem that I call the “Dr. Strangelove Effect”. Printers need to control their baser instincts instead of spiraling down to the greatest color saturation in print after print. Sometimes a pastel is what you really want. Sometimes subtle colors convey the right mood. As Jay Dusard once noted during a workshop review of color images, “Not all photographs have to look like a professional football jersey.”