In The Mood

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Low contrast, especially in black and white, has been popular for a while now, and I’ve messed around with it a bit, thinking it looks cool and interesting.  But I was never happy with the results, probably because I didn’t have a true feel for what it was all about.

But then I saw this photo:

 And for whatever reason, low contrast, for me, finally clicked.  I see it as casting a pensive, calm mood—sort of like cool, blue light can.   Not too many people are having a wild party in light like that.  Nor are they reading.  No, light like that is good for thinking profound, maybe even aching thoughts.  

Maybe that’s obvious to most people; I don’t know.  All I do know is, I didn’t grasp it at first.  Which is why just messing around with low contrast didn’t really work.   Like any element of a photo, the level of contrast needs to be chosen for a reason.  “Because I just saw a photo that had it and I think it looks good” is not enough of a reason.  It's a start, but not anywhere near an end.  Better to dig deeper, with thoughts of things like creating a party mood, or a manly mood, or a feminine mood, or a pensive mood.

Sometimes, maybe you have to be in the mood to be in the mood.

 (photo: Dafne Cejas by Josefina Bietti in “Black and White” for Fashion Gone Rogue)

The Filters Revolution

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Lots of anger, angst and strong opinions in general these days about people slapping a filter on their photos, calling it cool, and sending them off, onto the web.

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But here’s the deal: the other two major areas of visual media—movies and TV—have been using “filters” for a long time.  Expect they call it color grading, and they even give it its own professional name, a “colorist.”  It’s crucial work that contributes an indispensable mood to the story, right up there with the lighting and the acting.

So why do some photographers react against this creative tool so vehemently?  Maybe it’s a fiction vs nonfiction truth thing, dominated by photojournalists wanting the truth.  Or maybe it’s purely just a sticking to tradition kind of thing—Avedon and Cartier-Bresson didn’t use filters, so neither should we.

But whatever the reason, the revolution has arrived.  People view far move movies and TV than still photos, and as a result their visual vocabulary now includes color grading.   Even the  reality show, “Gold Rush,” uses somewhat extreme color grading in its intro., and even in some of it’s footage, I think—and that show is not exactly aimed at the hipster crowd.   It’s as meat and potatoes as it gets.

Just about everyone expects the extra dimension of emotion that color grading provides to stills as well as motion, and I think that’s a good thing.